For almost two weeks in April of 1876, the City of Hartford was puzzled by the sudden disappearance of its respected fire chief Henry J. Eaton, who had been in the position since 1868. Seemingly without a word to his family and colleagues, he vanished without a trace on April 1 and no one in Hartford knew where he was until news arrived late on April 12 that he’d been discovered in Brooklyn, NY. He was brought back to Hartford where, perhaps surprisingly, he immediately resumed his duties as chief. The strange incident was quickly forgotten and, as I described in my last Substack post, he continued an illustrious career that made him a familiar and beloved figure in the city. He was well-known for rushing to the scenes of innumerable fires on horseback and later by horse-drawn buggy (he was even filmed driving his famous white horse in an 1897 film reel). Honored with a big parade in 1901 to celebrate his 50 years as a Hartford fire fighter, he retired two years later despite pleas from the fire commissioners that he stay on.

Much of my Hartford research relies on newspaper accounts. These often give tantalizing hints of deeper stories that otherwise remain mostly hidden. A few limited references to Eaton’s disappearance in the Hartford Courant, which is searchable through an online database, raised many questions about what was going on back in 1876. As I’d done before while researching my post about a shootout in Hartford in 1880, I decided to check the Hartford Times coverage of the incident. Since that paper isn’t digitized, this requires pouring through microfilmed issues for the specific dates in question at the Connecticut State library. As with the shootout episode, the Times coverage of the chief’s disappearance was indeed more detailed than the Courant’s, but much was still obscure, likely reflecting attitudes surrounding mental illness at the time. In the rest of this article, I’d like to share the narrative of this bizarre incident as reflected in the contemporary newspapers. Please consider commenting at the end with your opinion on this story and what was perhaps left unstated at the time.

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The Chief Vanishes from Hartford

The initial report in the Hartford Courant on Monday, April 3 was brief. It noted that the chief had last been seen Saturday at the railroad depot around 10 a.m. dressed in his uniform and that “His friends fear that he has wandered away in some temporary derangement of mind.” The Hartford Times gave much greater detail:

Chief Engineer Henry J. Eaton, of the Hartford fire department, has been missing since Saturday morning. He was not seen at headquarters at any time on Saturday, though he is reported to have been on Pearl street at 4 o’clock in the morning. At 9 o’clock he was on Gold street, assisting in the repairs of a broken wire, and soon after went into Sisson & Butler’s store. Next he called at Engine 4’s house, on Ann street, where he borrowed some cloth covers, which are used to put over the department buttons. He said nothing about going away, and left no message. From 4’s house he went to Hunt, Holbrook & Barber’s, on Union place, where he conversed awhile with Foreman Barber, of Engine 7, and when he left it was about 10 o’clock. He was seen in the depot a few minutes later, on the Providence side, and asked of an acquaintance what time the train left for Tariffville. Here all clue to his movements are lost.

There are many suppositions as to the route he took which have all been weighed carefully by the fire commissioners, who desire to act understandingly. Although missed in the department and by his family, his absence created no alarm, as he is frequently away from home a whole day, so earnest has he been in his attention to his duties. It was not until the alarm of fire from box 23 was struck early Sunday morning that fears were excited. He was not at the fire and the intelligence soon flashed throughout the department. The general expression was that the chief was laboring under temporary aberration of mind and had wandered away, but where no one could tell. This is undoubtedly the true cause of his disappearance. He has been overburdened with care and responsibility; he was the hardest working man in the fire department, constantly employed, when not engaged in manual labor he was working hard with his brain, and this constant worry and over-exertion has affected his mind.

After the Pearl street fire Sunday morning a messenger was despatched [sic] to the residence of President Lawrence to ascertain if the chief had been sent away or had left any word about going away. He had not; and this intelligence only increased anxiety to find him. No clue could be obtained.

Early yesterday morning First Assistant Engineer Jaycox was appointed chief pro tem., and the fire commissioners notified to meet at 1 o’clock. Thinking that the chief might have gone to Worcester, a telegram was sent to that place asking if he was there, but a reply was received stating that he had not been seen. The fire commissioners expressed sympathy for the chief and his family in this sudden misfortune, and determined to make a thorough search, in hopes that he will be found alive. Telegraphic communication has been opened with all points. The suspense will be great, not only to the fire department and his family, but to every citizen of Hartford, who respect the chief highly. He has been chief of the fire department since October, 1868, and has filled the position satisfactorily and honorably. He is beloved by his men and respected by the entire community, and all will sympathize with him and his family.

We learn that the chief took the 11:10 a. m. train Saturday morning for Waterbury, and was seen by B. B. Strong and Stephen Strickland, of this city, who were in the car with him and went with him as far as Plainville. The chief covered his buttons during his conversation with these gentlemen, and put on a cloth cap. Diligent [sic] search will be made along the road.

The Search for the Chief

Over the next few days, the Hartford Times continued to give much more detailed coverage than the Courant. On April 4 the paper reported:

There were few newer developments concerning the disappearance of Chief Eaton, whose movements have been actively followed since Sunday. In our account of his departure yesterday he had been traced as far as Waterbury. Detective Cowles was sent out there yesterday morning, and at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon Chief Chamberlin received a telegram stating that Chief Eaton left Bridgeport at 3:38 p.m., Saturday, for New York, and Cowles went through, in hopes to either find him or gain some definite information as to his whereabouts. The next official report was to the effect that the Chief had been in New York, but his movements from there are not positively known. It is hoped that that [sic] the strenuous efforts of the fire commissioners with the assistance of the telegraph, will be rewarded by direct knowledge of the chief’s destination and that before many hours. The fire commissioners held a special session last evening and the subject was thoroughly discussed; the public may content themselves that the commissioners are doing their duty. A regular meeting of the board will be held this evening.

—We learn this afternoon by telegram from New York that Chief Eaton spent Saturday evening in New York with Chief Engineer Bates and Albert Stillwell, of Engine 11, but after 10 o’clock that night his whereabouts are a mystery. Nothing unusual was noticed in his conduct or appearance. Detective Cowles has discontinued his search beyond New York, awaiting instructions from Hartford. Chief Chamberlain has business in New York and leaves this afternoon. He will make inquiries and perhaps may learn something that will give a clearer clue to the course of the chief. The fire commissioners met at the police office this afternoon at 1 o’clock and authorized Chief Chamberlain to act for them. It will be a happy hour to Hartford when Chief Eaton returns.

There was no news about the chief’s whereabouts the following day, April 5, but the Times did note, “It is thought by his friends that, even if found, Chief Eaton will not return. In case he should not come back, or should be found to be insane, it is probable that assistant Jaycox will be chosen to fill the place.” On April 6, the Times related that “David S. Camp, the photographer, has made some very good pictures of Chief Engineer Eaton, for the use of the detectives, and will soon be prepared to furnish correct likenesses of the chief to his friends.” The search continued, as reported by the Times on August 7:

No positive tidings of the whereabouts of Chief Engineer Eaton have been received up to noon to-day. Chief-of-police Chamberlain has returned from Philadelphia, Newark, Jersey City and New York, and Detective Cowles has started on another trip in the same direction, with instructions to telegraph should he succeed in getting any clue. A private letter received yesterday contained the information that Chief Eaton had been in St. Louis, and this morning a telegram was despatched [sic] questioning the truth of the statement and requesting that enquiries be made in that city. A reply is expected this afternoon, or evening at the latest, and if the report is confirmed, it will relieve anxiety to a great extent, and suggest new means of action on the part of our fire commissioners, who are striving to find out where the chief is and have him return. All hopes in this respect have not been abandoned, and possibly they may be favorably realized.

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There were no new reports over the weekend, but on Wednesday, April 12 the Hartford Courant carried the following:

The mystery of Chief Engineer Eaton’s whereabouts is still unsolved. Detective Cowles yesterday visited Yonkers, whither it was reported Mr. Eaton had gone, but found no trace of him. Mr. Cowles returned this morning. Chief of Police Chamberlin is still in New York, and is understood to have important information in his possession, which may lead to Mr. Eaton’s return.

The Chief Is Found

At last, that same evening, the Times revealed that Eaton’s return was imminent:

It appears now very probable that before many hours Chief Eaton will return to Hartford. He will be heartily welcomed. Chief Chamberlin and Detective Cowles followed up the Yonkers clue, and even farther up the river, but gained nothing in that direction. Detective Cowles returned to Hartford on the midnight train last night, while Chief Chamberlin remained to ferret out the clue. This morning a telegram was received from the Brooklyn chief of police, saying that Chief Eaton was there, and official instructions were returned. The commissioners met this noon, and Messrs. Hills and Murphy of the board were instructed to go to Brooklyn and find the chief, and these gentlemen will doubtless bring him back with them.

Some of the most foolish rumors ever thought of have been circulated and even printed in some of the papers, and have not helped the case a particle. Chief Eaton is entitled to very great sympathy, and should he return and again assume command of the department (which it is earnestly hoped he will do) a reduction of cares and responsibilities will relieve his mind and make his course, as well as that of the department, much easier, and no one will have cause to complain of efficiency or good management.

There are some interesting details from the New York papers about the discovery of the chief. The Hartford Times, in the fourth edition of its April 12 issue, carried an item clearly taken from one of them:

Henry J. Eaton, chief of the Hartford fire department, who has been missing since April 1st, was this morning discovered in Court street, Brooklyn.

Chief Eaton was brought before the police and explained that he had been on a visit to friends in Charleston, S. C. The chief is considered deranged. The Hartford authorities were notified.

Further interesting details appeared in the New York Times on April 13:

David McConnell, the head-line man at Brooklyn Police Head-quarters, saw a man answering Eaton’s description, about 9 o’clock yesterday morning, in Court street; and when he went up and accosted him by name, the man denied his identity. He was taken to Police Headquarters, and subsequently left for Hartford in company with the Chief of Police of that city, who came to Brooklyn from Albany, where he was looking for Mr. Eaton.

The Chief’s Return to Hartford

The Courant’s report on April 13 gave the basic facts and seems not to have covered the incident any further afterwards:

When Detective Cowles was in New York this week he left photographs of Chief Engineer Eaton both in New York and Brooklyn, and by one of these probably the missing man was identified by the Brooklyn officers yesterday. A telegram was received in this city announcing his presence in Brooklyn, and Messrs. Hills and Murphy of the fire board proceeded to New York on the fast train. They returned at half-past nine last night with Mr. Eaton, who seemed glad to get home. He has been in Richmond, Va., and various other places since he left Hartford.

The Hartford Times coverage later that evening was more thorough, but still leaves much to wonder about:

Agreeable to the expectations expressed in the TIMES last evening, Chief Engineer Eaton is at home. He arrived at 9:30 o’clock last evening, in company with Fire Commissioners Hills and Murphy, who were met at the depot by the fire commissioners, Acting Chief Jaycox, Assistant Engineer Kinkaid, Foreman Williams and E. J. Hale, of Alert hose, and a TIMES reporter. As the chief alighted from the car, he was warmly welcomed, escorted to a carriage, and driven to fire department headquarters, on Pearl street, where the board listened to his account of his travels, which was full of interest. At 10 o’clock, Chief Eaton was reinstated, and Acting Chief Jaycox relieved of the duties he has been temporarily performing, with the thanks of the commissioners. Chief Eaton has changed considerably in his complexion, being very much tanned by exposure to weather; his health is evidently fully restored, and he takes his office with a substantial cheer from his subordinates and our citizens. The universal exclamation is “I’m glad he is back.” Here’s our hand, chief, and we are glad to see you.

It is due to the fire commissioners to have the public understand how patiently they have worked in their search for the chief, and we congratulate them on the success of their efforts.

This appears to have been the end of the Times’ coverage of the matter. So, what can we make of this unusual sequence of events? There must have been indications that Eaton was suffering mental strain before his abrupt disappearance. Did the Board of Fire Commissioners feel responsibility for placing too many burdens on their beloved chief? We can only wonder about the contents of the interesting account the chief made to the fire commissioners of his nearly two weeks away! His friends had been quoted as thinking he would not want to return and when he was found by a policeman in Brooklyn he lied about his identity. Others, however, assumed it was only a “temporary derangement of mind.” In the present day it’s certain that a chief in that situation would be psychiatrically evaluated. Things were quite different in 1876, but even given that fact, it’s extraordinary that, in just half an hour after his return, the Board determined that he was fully restored and immediately reinstated him! Their judgement was certainly validated: Chief Eaton gave 27 more years of stellar service. He continued to regularly take great risks, his worst injuries coming in 1878 when he fell through a hatchway at an industrial fire and broke his nose, jaw, and both wrists. On that occasion he did not return to work for four weeks. He retired in 1903 and passed away in 1922 at the age of 91.

In the first week of August 1897 the Hartford-born actor William Gillette had just finished his highly successful debut run in London’s West End starring in his play Secret Service at the Adelphi Theatre. His closing performance was on Wednesday, August 4, after which the Adelphi’s resident English company took over. With some time to kill before his ship set sail that Saturday for the return trip to America, Gillette decided to attend the American Biograph projection of moving pictures. These were part of the variety bill at the Palace Theatre at Cambridge Circus (at the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road). The actor, who admitted he was feeling “awfully homesick,” was startled to realize that among the various scenes being screened were some filmed in his hometown of Hartford! One (now lost) film showed the well-known sleigh-racing that enlivened the city’s Washington Street each winter.1 But the first sequence screened that evening to depict Hartford showed its legendary fire-chief, Henry J. Eaton, tearing down Wyllys Street in a buggy pulled by his ubiquitous white horse. They were followed by “Jumbo,” the department’s famous self-propelled steam fire engine.2 Gillette is said to have “applauded in manner that attracted the attention of the house.”3

William Kennedy Laurie Dickson of the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company had filmed the firefighters that April in Hartford and four months later Gillette was viewing the moving pictures in London. The actor (who would later gain fame for playing Sherlock Holmes on stage) was not alone in his reaction to the film. Other Hartfordites abroad had similar experiences: an audience in Edinburgh, Scotland was startled by a cry of, “By Jove, it’s Eaton!” at a showing attended by James M. Thomson (of Brown, Thomson & Co.) and John Garvie, former building inspector of Hartford. When jeweler Harry Kohn (a clock bearing his company’s name still stands outside the former Sage-Allen Building), who was serving as a fire commissioner at the time, recognized Eaton and Jumbo on the screen at a Berlin theater, “Decorum was thrown to the winds and the then commissioner gave a yell of delight and enthusiasm that aroused that German audience most effectually.”

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Closer to home, in the summer of 1898 during the Spanish-American War, Robert D. Chapin and a group of sailors from Hartford, serving in the Second Division of the state’s Naval Battalion, were stationed in Boston when they attended a series of moving pictures, one of which was inaccurately labeled, “Boston’s Biggest Fire Engine.”

The way those boys rose up and yelled and cheered led the rest of the house to think they were sinking imaginary Spanish battleships, but the cries of “Eaton” and “Hartford” soon gave them an inkling of the situation and laid bare the falsehood of the title given the picture by the picture man.4

But who was this Chief Eaton, whose sudden appearance, together with his well-known horse, created so much excitement (perhaps as much, if not more, than the glimpse of the huge steam engine “Jumbo”)?

Chief Eaton

The story of Chief Eaton’s 52-year career as a firefighter coincides with a significant portion of the early development of Hartford’s Fire Department. Born in Hartford in 1831, from the ages of 10 to 17 he lived on a farm in West Hartford. Later returning to the city, in 1846 he apprenticed to the gold beaters Ashmead & Hurlburt. He beat out the gold leaf exhibited by the firm at the Crystal Palace exhibition in London in 1851, the same year Eaton became a volunteer firefighter in Hartford. Ten years later, Hartford had its first steam fire engine. The fire service was changed from a volunteer force into a paid professional department in 1864. I’ve written here before about the installation of the department’s large fire bell on Pearl Street, which was connected to the city’s first telegraphic alarm box system5 in 1867. The following year, having risen through the ranks, Eaton was appointed chief, a position he held until his retirement in 1903. When he finally decided to step away, the fire commissioners begged him to stay, but he stuck to his decision. Looking back on his career in 1911, the Hartford Courant newspaper explained:

Chief Eaton never had the reputation of being a curb-stone fireman. He got his training in fire fighting in a day when the firemen had to get into the smoke, and did not have engines and streams powerful enough to throw the water into a burning building from a comfortable distance. That training always staid with him. He never sent a man into a place he would not go into himself, but that was not consolation for a timid fireman, for Henry J. Eaton would go in anywhere. Several times he narrowly escaped with his life. Those things never bothered him, and he was always as ready the next time to take the same chances.

Eaton’s most severe injuries came during a fire in October 1878 at the old Woodruff & Beach works on Commerce Street. The chief fell through a hatchway and broke his nose, jaw, and both wrists. He was confined to his house for 17 days and it was four weeks before he could return to duty. Chief Eaton later recalled that the worst fire he had seen was the one that destroyed the Colt Armory in 1864. The chief was known for his bluntness. In 1901, when He’d had been a firefighter for a half-century, the Courant observed:

In many respects the chief is peculiar and he is never commonplace. Like many other truly great men he is a man of few words. He is emphatic rather than verbose. He admits that he is quick tempered and says that if he wrongs a man unintentionally he is glad to apologize, but only once, for a man who apologizes more than once is a sucker. He is a tireless worker and there are a number of big and rugged men in the department who will be made to puff like a porpoise after walking a short distance with him. Athletic feats were discussed at headquarters one night a few years ago and the chief's stunt was to balance himself on his hands, walk around the room on the ground floor and then walk up the stairway on his hands.

Chief Eaton attributes his success in the department to the fact that he has not had quarrels with his assistants and they have always worked well together. He says he never tells a man after a fire that he should have done such and such a thing. He gives his orders beforehand and expects to have them carried out. When he tells a fireman to do a thing he expects to have him do it and not to give the order to a third party. Once he told a fireman to do a certain thing and the fireman asked a boy to do it for him. The fireman quickly secured other employment.

Unable to leave home during his last few years, Henry J. Eaton was still serving as president of the Hartford Veteran Volunteer Firemen’s Association at the time of his death in 1922 at the age of 91.6

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The Chief’s White Horse

Over the course of his many years of service, Chief Eaton transitioned from rushing to fires on foot to riding on horseback and, in his last few years on the job, using a horse and wagon. He refused to switch to a motor vehicle, such as those his successors as chief came to use. In 1912, at a time when then Chief Augustus Loomis, was trying out a new 40-horsepower automobile, the Courant looked back at earlier days in the nineteenth century:

While Eaton couldn't make seventy miles an hour on his horse, as Chief Loomis can in his automobile, he traveled at an astounding rate of speed for those days, and his wild rides through the streets are well remembered by people who lived here in the 70s. When Chief Eaton and his horse once started for a fire they didn't bother much about fences, ditches and similar obstructions, but went through yards, across lots and over fences until they got there, by as nearly a straight route as possible. In this Chief Eaton had an advantage over the present chief, who must, if he has a regard for his own skin, stick to the street.

The newspaper explained that before the city first provided a saddle horse in 1871,

Chief Eaton had no experience as a rider, but this didn’t cause him any worry. Some of his friends urged him to go and be taught how to ride, but Eaton laughed at them. He said that when he was a boy in the country he had ridden a bull and that any one who could ride a bull could certainly ride a horse.

Securing an old artillery saddle, with projections in front and back like the arms of a chair, he proceeded to prove his assertion. Within a few months he was a veritable rough rider and practically lived on his horse. He began to do all his business on horseback and would ride into an engine house, ride around and inspect it and transact any business he had with the officers or men, remaining all the time in the saddle.7

By the time of the 1897 film, Eaton was regularly using a buggy pulled by a white horse named Ned. According to the Courant in 1903, Ned “had come to be almost as familiar a figure as the chief himself.” The city fire commissioners purchased Ned in 1888. Before then, the horse had passed through a number of owners, including the infamous Thomas B. Plunkett, who’d made a dramatic flight from Hartford to Mexico in 1886 after embezzling large sums from the Hartford Silk Company in Tariffville and the Union Manufacturing Company in Manchester. Before his sudden departure, Plunkett had clearly appreciated many drinking holes, as the Courant noted in 1904:

After Chief Eaton secured the horse for his own use in the department he drove to Tariffville with his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Sam Cooper one day. The horse stopped at every road house on the way out, showing that that drive had been a popular one with Mr. Plunkett.

Ned, estimated to be about 27 years old at the time of his retirement in 1903, was said to have never been attended by a doctor and to have been off duty for only about five weeks during his 15 years with the department: once when he was lame and once when he had to recover from a sprain after slipping on the pavement.8

On April 5, 1901, the city held a grand parade in honor of Chief Eaton’s fifty years as a Hartford fireman. Although it was initially understood that the Chief would walk in the parade, organizers then decided it would be more “interesting” to have him drive his familiar horse.9 Large crowds came out to watch current and veteran firefighters, along with the department’s apparatus and horses, march through downtown. Bands played various tunes, including “Hail to the Chief.” The parade then passed in front of the reviewing stand set up on Main Street outside the Old State House. There the mayor and fire commissioners greeted the chief and presented him with the city’s gift of fifty $10 gold pieces. The Courant described the moment when the chief and Ned approached the stand:

Chief Eaton rode proudly by with his head uncovered, as usual, modest in demeanor but proud in spirit, evidently feeling with conscious pride that the city he had served so long and faithfully was honoring him in the great demonstration. His old white horse seemed scarcely less proud than his master as he walked past the mayor and persons on the reviewing stand with head erect and tail arching proudly. The old horse seemed to recognize his importance and that he was half as old as the chief's term of service in the department and therefore entitled to some portion of the honors which were so freely awarded his chief. The silver color of his coat indicated the silver anniversary of his years.10

Two years later, when the horse was retired (followed a few months later by his chief), many might have assumed the venerable equine would receive a well-earned rest. Sadly, in 1904 there was word that Ned’s new owner was working him too hard. Businessman A. H. Merrill approached ex-Chief Eaton to accompany him in an attempt to buy the old horse and pasture him out, but then Eaton revealed that the horse had been chloroformed:

This week the horse was bought for $40 by a woman who had ideas about it similar to Mr. Merrill's. The horse was placed in a comfortable box stall on Morris street and the finest hay and grain that could be bought were put before it, but it could not eat. The ex-chief said he did not know what was the matter with the horse, but perhaps its teeth needed filing. As the animal had become crippled and emaciated it was decided to have it killed and end its sufferings.11

As mentioned above, the chief himself passed away 18 years later, but both the fire chief and his horse continue to live on in one of the earliest of all surviving motion pictures.

Last year, I made a video about mansions on Prospect Avenue in Hartford. Someone recently asked me if I had any information about the history of the house at 706 Prospect Avenue, which was not one of the ones that I had featured in the video. There’s not a lot of information about the house available online or in published sources, but after digging through the digital archives of the Hartford Courant I was able to find the names of the house’s architects and builders and its original residents. I also came across the story of a dramatic event which destroyed the home’s kitchen in 1919!

Home of a Prominent Hartford Merchant

On July 24, 1895, the Hartford Courant reported (in a story entitled “Mr. Chapman’s Cottage”) that “Thomas B. Chapman of Marshall street has just had completed a new house on the east side of Prospect avenue which he has rented to William H. Post. Mr. Post will take possession about August 1.” This is almost certainly the house at 709 Prospect Avenue. The article further relates that, “The house was built from plans prepared by W. F. Becker, Edward O'Neil was the contractor, Olds & Whipple did the plumbing and Walter F. Blake did the decorating. The house cost about $9,000.”1 What the article doesn’t reveal is that Chapman was Post’s son-in-law. Thomas Brownell Chapman (1859-1904) was the son of former Hartford mayor Charles R. Chapman (in office 1866-1872). His mother was Harriet Putnam Brownell Chapman, a daughter of the Episcopal Bishop Thomas Church Brownell (hence her son’s given name and the fact that Thomas B. Chapman was educated at Trinity College, which his grandfather had founded). As his obituary in the Courant (March 10, 1904) noted, Chapman “had been in a number of enterprises, being last New England agent for Holmes, Booth & Haydens of Waterbury,” manufacturers of brass and copper goods, as well as photographic plates.

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Chapman’s father-in-law, William Henry Post (1833-1899), was one of Hartford’s most notable merchants. From the mid-1850s until 1881, Post and his partner Caleb L. Talcott, operated one of the city’s most prominent dry goods and carpet stores, Talcott & Post, which was located at the corner of Main and Pratt Streets. In 1881, the partnership was dissolved and Post moved further up Main Street to start a new business, William H. Post & Co., which sold carpets, drapes, and wallpaper. The business operated in a building that was located where the former G. Fox & Company Building stands today. Unfortunately, Post’s business went bankrupt in 1892. Undeterred by this setback, he started a new carpet store, located at the corner of Asylum and Haynes Streets, in 1894, the year before he moved into his son-in-law’s house. Post passed away in 1899 and his daughter and son-in-law were soon residing in the house (or they may have already been living there before his death). Sadly, Thomas B. Chapman died in 1904, but his widow, Helen Louise Post Chapman (1860-1941) continued to occupy the home into the 1920s. During those years, she was quite active in supporting social and political causes, opening her house for such occasions as a 1908 sale of towels made by “needy women, who are assisted through the Union for Home Work,” a 1913 lecture on Women’s suffrage by the wife of Yale professor Arnold Gesell, a 1916 “illustrated lecture” by Loyal Sewell, who described first hand his seven months’ work on the front lines in Europe with the American Red Cross, and a 1917 meeting of “28 prominent society women” who organized a Hartford branch of the National Child Labor Committee and started planning a child labor exhibit to be held in the Old State House.2

The Kitchen Explosion

While Mrs. Chapman’s house was the scene of a number of active gatherings, perhaps the most dramatic incident to ever take place there was described by the Courant on April 28, 1919:

A terrific explosion last night in the kitchen range at the home of Mrs. Thomas B. Chapman at No. 706 Prospect avenue shattered the range to atoms, as Mrs. Chapman expressed it to a reporter for “The Courant,” the force of the explosion being such that the lids of the range were embedded in the ceiling of the kitchen. There was nobody in the room at the time. Investigation by members of the police and fire departments late last night did not disclose the exact nature of the cause of the explosion, but it is believed to have resulted from some dynamite that was in the coal when it came here from the mines.

The first intimation of the occurrence came when Mrs. Chapman telephoned to police headquarters, gave the details of the explosion and asked that a policeman be sent to the house to make an investigation. Policeman W. J. Fitzgerald was reached, by means of the signal system and he hastened to the house. Before he reached the house, however, Third Deputy Fire Chief R. H. Ramsden, who jumped out of bed as a result of Mrs. Chapman's appeal when she telephoned to Engine Company No. 5's house on Sigourney street, where the chief's quarters are, hurried to the Chapman home and had made an inspection of the wrecked kitchen.

The theory of the Chapman household was that an accumulation of coal gas in the fire place of the range had caused the explosion, but this the two departments discount as it was pointed out there was not sufficient coal in the range to allow for such an accumulation of gas. It was said that in all probability a portion of a stick of dynamite which had managed to get in with a shipment of coal from the mines was in the hod of coal which was placed in the range.

It was learned that a servant in the house had filled the range with a hod of coal, opened the damper and had retired to her room before [banking ?] the kitchen range for the night. In less than ten minutes after this operation, it was said, there was a terrific explosion. The range was shattered, pots and pans which were on the range were hurled in all directions, but none of the live coals started a fire. The walls of the kitchen were dented and furniture in the kitchen was wrecked. Mrs. Chapman immediately notified police headquarters and Deputy Chief Ramsden. No still alarm was sent to the East Side fire company in West Hartford, a short distance away.

She seems to have left the house in the 1920s. She went on to write an account of her memories of Hartford in her youth entitled My Hartford in the Nineteenth Century, published in 1928.

The master of thy galley still unlades
Gift after gift; they block my court at last
And pile themselves along its portico

—Robert Browning, Cleon (1855)

On the afternoon of November 21, 1902, Miss M. Eleanor Ford gave a talk at the home of Mrs. John Holcombe, 79 Spring Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Her subject was the city of Florence, Italy focusing on the period when it was home to the poetic couple, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She started by quoting from Robert Browning’s poem Cleon, in which he mentions a Greek portico. As a report in the Hartford Courant related the following day, she “said that a Greek portico was a proper place to start in any search for art or for literature.” It was surely no coincidence that the front facade of the house in which she was speaking featured a prominent one-story rounded entrance portico with four classical columns. Built in 1815, the Holcombe House was one of Hartford’s notable residential landmarks and was photographed by the WPA for its Census of Old Buildings in Connecticut. Sadly, the house was taken down in about 1950. By then, it had been home to generations of one of the city’s oldest families.

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Early History of the House

Spring Street is located between Myrtle Street and I-84 to the east (with Union Station and the railroad tracks just beyond) and Garden Street to the west. It once extended from Asylum Street north to Myrtle Street, but this relatively short distance was reduced even further in the 1960s, when construction of the highway cut through Spring Street’s southern end. In the early twentieth century, Spring Street was lined with a variety of residential buildings, including early nineteenth century single-family homes, rowhouses, and later apartment blocks. Today, there are only four buildings, all on the west side: two 1890s apartment buildings (one a “Perfect Six”) are on the southern end, while a later 1920s apartment building and an Italianate-style home built in 1852 for Calvin Day (now the Gray Lodge Shelter for Woman) are on the northern end. Between these two sets of buildings is a vast parking lot and (you guessed it!) it was here that the Holcombe House once stood.

The house was erected in 1815 by George J. Patten, the son of Rev. William Patten, a former minister of Hartford’s South Church, and his wife Ruth, who was a daughter of Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College.1 The following notice appeared in the Courant on April 26, 1815:

To LET, on the 1st day of May,

THE new House, out-houses and gardens, (and if desired, a number of acres of mowing and pasture land) 15 rods north of Mr. Christopher Colt’s house, on Lord’s Hill; fronting the Episcopal Church, from which it is distant about one-third of a mile. The house is planned and finished to accommodate a genteel family of six or eight persons: To a gentleman having such a family, and who values extensive and richly variegated prospects, in the immediate vicinity of the town, those premises will be an object.

GEO. J. PATTEN

I don’t have information on who lived in the house from 1815 until 1840, but in that latter year it was purchased by James H. Holcombe (1806-1889), a prominent lawyer, who moved in with his widowed mother, Nancy Smith Huggins Holcombe (1784-1872). The house was a Federal-style structure, featuring Palladian windows, corner pilasters, elaborately carved pediments and friezes, dentil trim and other decorative elements of that elegant style of architecture. At some point, a rear wing (that is taller than the main block of the house) was given a Mansard roof.

The house stood on Lord’s Hill (which came to be known as Asylum Hill after the construction there of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb) and had a view to the east that stretched beyond Hartford towards the hills of Bolton. Within a few years of moving in, however, railroad tracks connecting to the new Union Station were built just down the hill to the east. To block the view of the tracks in 1852 Holcombe constructed a three-story block of 12 rowhouse apartments, each containing 6 rooms. As originally arranged, there was one well for every three houses. The Courant later noted that the building was said to be the first multiple family residence in the city. [When it was built, these homes were considered very fashionable, but by 1934 it was in disrepair and the city’s Department of Building Inspection ordered that it be vacated. Rather than undertake expensive repairs, James H. Holcombe’s grandsons decided to demolish the 82-year-old structure.]2

Emily and John Holcombe

Frequently in ill health, James H. Holcombe left Hartford in 1878 for warmer climates in Europe. Except for one return visit to Hartford, he would spend the rest of his life abroad, primarily in Italy. He departed with his wife Emily, his son James W., and his daughter Sarah. Unfortunately, Sarah passed away during their first year away. Later, when James H. Holcombe died in Positano, Italy in 1889, his son John Marshall Holcombe (1848-1926) inherited the house, which he shared with his wife, Emily Seymour Goodwin Holcombe (1852-1923). John, who was born and later died in the same house, was one of Hartford’s most prominent citizens and widely recognized as an authority on the subject of life insurance, even lecturing on the subject at his alma mater, Yale University. In 1874 he had started to work for what would become the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, and fifty years later he retired having been the company’s president for over two decades. He then served as Chairman of the Board until his death.3

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In 1873, he married Emily Seymour Goodwin, who was born in Bristol, Connecticut and raised in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Emily S. G. Holcombe is a legendary figure in the story of historic preservation in Connecticut. As her obituary in the Hartford Courant (3/29/23) noted:

In the movement of the chapter to save the Ancient Burying Ground in the rear of the Center Church she was a leader. She originated the plan, for widening Gold street and removing the line of old tenement houses of unsightly appearance on the north side of the street. In the project the support of the patriotic public was desired and generous response was made, but delays and unforeseen obstacles were encountered, only to be overcome by the unfaltering faith and tenacity of Mrs. Holcombe, who at one time seemed to be acting almost alone. Her labor was eventually crowned with entire success and to her, most of all, the city is indebted for the restoration of the cemetery and the improvement of its approaches. June 17, 1899, the celebration of the completion of the work took place. As regent of the [D.A.R.] chapter and originator of the project, Mrs. Holcombe made the address and she delivered to the mayor the deeds of certain parcels of land involved.

She was the organizer of the Ruth Wyllys Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and oversaw the repairing and furnishing of the Oliver Ellsworth Homestead when it opened as a museum property of the D.A.R. in 1903. A charter member of the Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames of America, she appealed to that organization to establish a fund to save the Old State House in Hartford from demolition in 1909. During these years she was also involved in representing Connecticut’s history to a wider audience:

As a member of the Board of Lady managers of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, she was active in obtaining for Connecticut, a suitable site for its official state building and also adequate representation, and as a result of her co-operation with the state commission the Connecticut building was one of the most artistic in the exposition. Later she was appointed special commissioner of antiques and historical articles. The prestige which the success of her work brought led the authorities of the state to urge her to take charge of the Connecticut building at the Jamestown exposition in 1907 which followed the classic model of a Litchfield home.

In addition, she lobbied to have the nickname of Connecticut changed from the Nutmeg State to the Constitution State.

It is not surprising that Emily Holcombe would have played such a prominent role in furnishing the Ellsworth Homestead (the Courant described her as having “a thorough technical knowledge of the articles desired”) and the exposition houses because she and her husband had their own extensive collection of antiques. On August 24, 1891, the Courant reported on a fire that destroyed a barn behind the house that was filled with “antique furniture and bric-a-brac which Mr. Holcombe had collected during a recent trip to Europe.” As for American objects, a notable example is a classic c. 1675-1710 Wethersfield area “Sunflower” chest in the Peter Blinn shop tradition that was acquired by Emily Holcombe from a cousin in 1913. The chest had descended from their ancestor, Nathaniel Foote of Wethersfield, a turner who may have been involved in creating the applied ornament found on that type of furniture. The chest stood in the Spring Street house until her death in 1923 and was inherited by her son, John M. Holcombe, Jr., who lived in the Timothy Cowles House in Farmington. The chest was sold by Christie’s in 2016 for $30,000.

Major Anniversaries

On May 1, 1915, the Courant reported that the previous day Mr. and Mrs. Holcombe hosted a reception at their home for invited guests in honor of the 100th anniversary of the house:

Rich and cherished associations cluster around the Holcombe house, and its history has been notable.

On the property is a tree that is a cutting from the original Charter Oak, secured by Hon. I. W. Stuart when the famous tree flourished on his grounds, which he gave to the late James H. Holcombe to plant on the Lord’s Hill property.

During the reception the guests inspected the antique furniture and other articles in the old house which make it of such historic worth. They saw what members of the Holcombe family call “Grandmother Holcombe’s sitting room,” which contains only furniture formerly used by her; the Ely chest in the hall,4 the Ely tripod table, which stands in the drawing room and has scalloped edges of unusual design, with the crest of the family in the center, and the Ely Rose; the old clock on the stairs that has ticked off the minutes for Mr. Holcombe’s grandfather, his father and himself, and other antique pieces of interest and value. The coffee was poured in a very old set of blue china and the tea in gilt and white china.

The renovated stairway, patterned exactly after the original one; the quaint and old fashioned fireplaces and mantels; the general colonial architecture of the house, all preserved in their original beauty, make this home one of a type that is a delight to lovers and students of colonial history, people, customs and homes.

The figures of the number, “79,” on the front door of the house are an exact duplicate of the figures in the old Higgins [Huggins] family Bible, religiously preserved by the Holcombe family. They were written in a perfect hand by James Higgins [Huggins] of New Haven, the year 1791 being recorded as the date of an event of some family importance. A little circular porch, in true colonial architecture, stands out from the door.

The drawing room, in which the guests were entertained, contains articles of furniture that date back far before the time that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Among these is an old chest that Mr. Holcombe acquired from the interior of Sicily, which was probably carved before Columbus discovered this country; a choir stall that came from the earthquake ruins at Messina and is very old, and an old painting of Jennett Lockhart, supposed to be a pupil of the Van Dyck School. In one of the rooms upstairs there is a fine example of a First Empire Recamier couch, a stylish bed and a very old bureau.

In 1923, the couple celebrated another milestone, their Golden Wedding Anniversary, opening their house for a grand reception that brought hundreds of visitors.5 Sadly, Emily Holcombe passed away less than two months later:

A life of close companionship, happiness and helpfulness lasted throughout their fifty years together, and she was a constant inspiration to her family by her unusual force and vivid personality. Because of her work in restoring the Ancient Burying Ground, the board of aldermen passed a resolution permitting two burials there, and in consequence the bodies of both Mr. and Mrs. Holcombe lie among the many early settlers of the city. Mrs. Holcombe passed away March 28, 1923, and Mr. Holcombe followed on June 15, 1926.6

The house was inherited by their son, Harold G. Holcombe. In 1950, he told a Courant reporter that some of the woodwork in his home came from an old house that had once stood on the site of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Morgan Memorial Building.7 In June 1941, Harold and his wife celebrated a century of the family’s residence at the Holcombe House with another reception attended by hundreds,8 but about a decade later, the storied house met its end. In 1950, Harold sold it to Sloate Chevrolet, which had erected a show room and service center across the street in 1947. The house was soon demolished for a parking lot, which has existed ever since. One of Harold’s three sons who grew up in the house, Shepherd Holcombe (1921-2012), continued his grandmother’s dedication to historic preservation through his active involvement with the Ancient Burying Ground and the Mark Twain House.

Sorry for spamming, but I wanted to make sure everyone got this new information! I concluded my last post with some uncertainty over exactly how or when the house at 201 Washington Street in Hartford came to an end. A mid-1800s mansion, the house became a restaurant in about 1941 and survived into the 1970s. After I shared a link to the post on Facebook, the son of one of the owners (his father and two uncles operated the restaurant as D’Angelo’s in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s) noted that it was sold to a new owner and later caught on fire. I was then able to find an article about the fire. I have updated the final paragraph of that post and I’ve included it here as well:

In 1971, the establishment was owned by Carmella and Michael LaConche of Three Coins, Inc. In what was likely a nod to the earlier owners, the restaurant was called Brothers Three. Throughout much of the house’s period as a restaurant there were apartments on the upper two floors. In another Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing on March 7, 1972, the new owners received a special exemption to extend the liquor license to the second floor, where they planned to replace about 40 apartment rooms with a larger banqueting space. The end of the restaurant, and probably the house itself, came because of a three-alarm fire that started in the basement in the early hours of October 30, 1973. Two employees of the restaurant, both men in their late 60s who lived on the building’s upper floor, were awakened by the smoke. They escaped to the roof where they were rescued by firefighters. After the fire, there were no further advertisements for the restaurant in the Hartford Courant and, as noted above, the building was gone by 1980.

This brief history of 201 Washington Street reflects the changes the neighborhood experienced in the twentieth century. A mansion of the wealthy became a clubhouse, briefly a private hospital, and then a restaurant. By the time it was finally lost, it had long been one of the few architectural survivors of what was once the city’s most elegant residential street.

People sometimes write to me asking about the history of specific lost buildings in Hartford that they remember. Recently, someone asked about an old house that once had big columns in front and was a restaurant in the 1970s. The house stood at 201 Washington Street, at the corner of Ward Street. Today, this is the location of the Post Office (189 Washington Street), which opened in 1997. When I started my research, I couldn’t find a photograph of the house, but just as I was finishing this piece, I discovered an advertisement from 1968 that featured a picture of it! (Read to the end to find the image!) It was a three-story Italianate style house, originally built in the mid-1800s. The house was not listed in the old Hartford Architecture Conservancy Survey of old buildings, so it was demolished by 1980. A house at that location, with the name “Squire” as the property owner, is shown in the 1869 Atlas of Hartford and Tolland Counties. Back then, Ward Street was called Baker Street. It was renamed Ward Street in 1871 for Col. James Ward, because the street which, according to the 1911 History of Hartford Streets, was first laid out in 1754, passed through his land. Col. Ward was State Commissary General from 1812 until 1856. The house appears (with an address of 101 Washington Street) in the 1880 atlas of Hartford, but with no name attached to it. The house is also depicted in the 1877 Birds Eye View (as shown in the image above).

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Home of a Trust Company President

In the 1896 atlas, the house appears much larger, so it had likely been expanded. The name attached to it in that atlas was Ralph W. Cutler, who resided there until his death in 1917. Cutler was president of the Hartford Trust Company and, according to his obituary in the Hartford Courant, he “was one of Hartford’s most successful bankers and was recognized throughout the country as expert on trust affairs.” According to the biography of Ralph William Cutler (1853-1917) in Men of Mark in Connecticut (1906):

Ralph Cutler’s boyhood was spent in the city of Boston and he received his education at the English High School, where he was graduated at the age of sixteen as a “Franklin Medal scholar.” He was strong and athletic and was brought up on the principle that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well and he believes that his parents’ confidence in his ability to succeed was the greatest inspiration of his life. He was as active mentally as he was physically and he has always enjoyed broad general reading as much as he has golf, tennis, rowing, and baseball, in which he has taken great interest and pleasure.

The first work which Mr. Cutler entered upon after leaving school was in the wholesale grocery business in Boston and his few years’ experience in mercantile life was valuable for the knowledge of men and of business methods which he gained thereby. In 1880, when Mr. Cutler was twenty-seven years old, he came to Hartford to become treasurer of the Hartford Trust Company, thus entering upon the banking career which he has pursued ever since. In 1887 he was elected president of the company and became the youngest bank president in the State.

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The Cutler house suffered from a fire that caused $1,000 in damage during the early hours of August 24, 1909. According to the Courant the next day, it

resulted in the damaging by fire or water of a good part of the furnishings of two rooms and for a time threatened the whole house. The blaze was discovered by Ralph D. Cutler, the son, who was occupying a room over the seat of the fire and was awakened by smoke. An inspection of the lower floor showed much smoke and some fire in the northwest part of the house and an alarm was immediately sent in. The firemen reached the place quickly and found the fire a difficult one to handle, as it was largely confined to the partitions and spread rapidly. However. by tearing out a lot of woodwork the fire was reached and subdued, but not before the chemical and hose wagon men had worked considerable damage. In a number of places in the walls the insulation was burned from the electric wires and the current charged everything that was wet, much to the surprise to the firemen who were endeavoring to move some of the furnishings in the burning rooms. The switch in the cellar was finally located and thrown off and the inconvenience done away with.

The elder Mr. Cutler was not home at the time, but the paper noted he soon returned from the shore by automobile.

Blackmail!

On November 3, 1917, the Courant revealed that Ralph W. Cutler had collapsed at the bank the previous day and was seriously ill, reporting that, “It is believed that Mr. Cutler is suffering from a nervous breakdown due to business pressure during the war.” He passed away on November 7, and the funeral was held at his Washington Street home on November 9. He was buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery. On the heels of this loss, his widow was subjected to another shock just three days after her husband’s death. As the Courant reported on November 18:

The blackmailing gang which terrorized prominent Hartford citizens last summer, including State Librarian George S. Godard, has resumed operations. Two letters, crudely written and misspelled, evidently by the same person who demanded an aggregate sum of $35,000 last summer, have been received. Mrs. Ralph W. Cutler of No. 201 Washington street, widow of the late president of the Hartford Trust Company, received a note demanding that $25,000 be deposited in Simsbury, the same place indicated in letters received last summer. John L. Talcott, president of the Strand Theater Company, has also been told to leave $2,500 in bills near “the four corners” on Albany avenue. Each letter threatens death if the money is refused.

The letter to Mrs. Cutler was received three days after the death of her husband. State and local police and detectives under the direction of State Chief Thomas F. Egan and local Police Chief Garrett J. Farrell, are working on both cases. It will be remembered that during the gang’s activities last summer; the state police came within a hairsbreath [sic] of rounding up the blackmailers. Efforts to trace the letters sent through the mails have proved futile.

Immediately after receiving the letter, Mrs. Cutler notified the state and local police. A “fake wad,” as a bait to the outlaws, was left at the spot stipulated. Failing to get the money demanded, the gang has gone to the extreme of verbal warnings by telephone. A strange man has called Mrs. Cutler repeatedly to the telephone, reiterating his demands and warning her of the penalty of refusal. Mrs. Cutler is in a state of nervous collapse. Her home is under constant surveillance, night and day, either by a plain-clothes man detailed for the purpose, or by the officer regularly stationed there.

The police refuse all information as to the specific steps they are taking to discover. and arrest the blackmailers. It is known that Chief Farell, after a conference with State Chief Egan and Captain Robert T. Hurley, scoured the countryside with four men.

This must have been a terrible ordeal for a woman who was already suffering the loss of her husband. I haven’t found further references to this story, so I don’t know how it was resolved or if the culprits were ever caught!

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Another individual who happened to have been targeted by the blackmail ring during their initial wave of activity in July 1917 was the young lawyer, Ferdinand D’Esopo. In 1920, his wife, Nellie Tremont D’Esopo, purchased the house at 201 Washington Street and in 1925 she opened the Washington Street Private Hospital in the building. According to the Courant (4/7/1925), “It will be the only private hospital in the city which takes all kinds of cases with the exception of contagious diseases.” The hospital did not last long. On November 1, 1927, the paper reported that the house was being sold after a foreclosure proceeding. This article described the house as “a large brick and stone structure, containing 24 rooms.” After indicating that an automobile company was considering replacing the house with a garage and salesroom (Washington Street was transitioning at the time from a residential area to having many car dealerships), the author of the piece noted that this would “mean the passing of another of the old-time mansions on Washington Street, which is rapidly becoming the center of the automobile industry in Hartford.”

Clubhouse Raided by Police

As it turned out, the old mansion would continue to exist for another half-century, although it would go through a lot of changes. Instead of being torn down, it became the clubhouse of a masonic organization called Syria Grotto, Mystic Order of the Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm (M. O. V. P. E. R.). In 1936, the building was acquired by another organization, Monaco-Carlino Post No. 1, Italian-American World War Veterans. By this time, the house was described in Courant articles as having 12 or 14 rooms, likely due to the removal of partitions between rooms to create larger spaces for club activities. A few years later, police would again direct their attention to 201 Washington Street. In 1939, police raided the Italian-American War Veterans Home there and arrested two members for violating the Liquor Control Act. The charges included selling and consuming liquor after hours. The Home’s liquor license had already been revoked in 1937 but it had been restored 8 months later. Now the license was being revoked for a second time.1

A House of Restaurants (1941 to the 1970s)

Less than two years later the house had become a restaurant. However, when its proprietor sought to get a liquor license from the city, he faced strenuous opposition from a group of neighbors who “feared a repetition of conditions which prevailed in the neighborhood previously,” back when the club had been in operation. The Zoning Board of Appeals decided to table the application until it could investigate further the alleged relationship of the current applicant to the former permittee and to determine how the business was being conducted.2 A license was eventually granted for the property, but a few months later, in December 1941, the Gay 90’s Restaurant and Grill at 201 Washington Street was being advertised under a different proprietor’s name. In 1945, this restaurant, under other proprietors, advertised that it specialized in “Italian and American home cooking,” and was “now serving business men’s lunches.” By 1950, the restaurant was being operated by Joe Vee (Joseph Vasquenza) and soon was known as Joe Vee’s Restaurant. On April 27, 1954, M. Oakley Stafford informed Courant readers that “Tony Fulmine really holds a record at Joe Vee’s restaurant, having appeared there with his orchestra on weekends for more than five years.”

An advertisement in the Courant on October 3, 1956, announced that Joey Vee’s was now D’Angelo’s Restaurant, under the owner-management of the D’Angelo Brothers. Joseph, Angelo, and Stephen D’Angelo operated the restaurant, later known as D’Angelo’s Casa Bianca Restaurant, for a decade. A transcript of a public hearing before the Hartford Zoning Board of Appeals on November 26, 19633 (just four days after the assassination of President Kennedy), reveals that the D’Angelo brothers were seeking to expand the restaurant with an addition on the rear and south sides. An earlier addition had been constructed in 1947. There was once a repair garage at the rear of the property, but this had been removed and the D’Angelos planned to extend the building by removing a “back frame structure” and erecting the new addition in the same style as the older part of the house. They also received a special exemption to park 18 cars at the property. An advertisement that appeared in the Courant on June 8, 1964, announced that the restaurant was reopening after being “Completely Re-modeled and modernized.”

Two years later, the D’Angelo Brothers sold the Casa Bianca restaurant to new owners.4 A substantial advertisement in the Courant on April 6, 1967, for yet another grand re-opening declared “New Elegance in Dining Comes to Hartford.” It noted the “complete diners from $3.25” and The Buffoon Cocktail Lounge, all “in the fun spot of Hartford” that was “located in the heart of the Capitol District.” There continued to be music and dancing at the restaurant, for instance Sal Auretta (organ and piano) and Carol Laurent (song stylist) performed in April 1968, while the following month the New Chic Trio appeared. In 1970, the restaurant was one of two places where basketball fans who wanted to watch former Providence College star Mike Riordan and the NBA champion Knicks play the Boston Celtics could purchase tickets for a pre-season charity game at the University of Hartford on September 27 (the Celtics won 120-107).

In 1971, the establishment was owned by Carmella and Michael LaConche of Three Coins, Inc. In what was likely a nod to the earlier owners, the restaurant was called Brothers Three. Throughout much of the house’s period as a restaurant there were apartments on the upper two floors. In another Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing on March 7, 1972,5 the new owners received a special exemption to extend the liquor license to the second floor, where they planned to replace about 40 apartment rooms with a larger banqueting space.6 The end of the restaurant, and probably the house itself, came because of a three-alarm fire that started in the basement in the early hours of October 30, 1973. Two employees of the restaurant, both men in their late 60s who lived on the building’s upper floor, were awakened by the smoke. They escaped to the roof where they were rescued by firefighters.7 After the fire, there were no further advertisements for the restaurant in the Hartford Courant and, as noted above, the building was gone by 1980.

This brief history of 201 Washington Street reflects the changes the neighborhood experienced in the twentieth century. A mansion of the wealthy became a clubhouse, briefly a private hospital, and then a restaurant. By the time it was finally lost, it had long been one of the few architectural survivors of what was once the city’s most elegant residential street.

The rage of a jealous husband led to an exchange of gunfire near Trinity College on a cold day in January 1880. In my previous post, I wrote about the Hartford County Courthouse that was built in the early 1880s on Trumbull Street, in the area where the Hartford Peoples Bank Arena stands today. Before the courthouse, this was the location of the childhood home of painter Frederic Edwin Church. After the Church family departed, in the late 1860s, the house was purchased by Dr. George B. Hawley (1812-1883), a noted Hartford physician and close friend of Samuel Colt. From the 1850s until his death, Dr. Hawley played a major role in the early development of Hartford Hospital, overseeing the design and construction of its first dedicated building. By 1880, the venerable doctor was sharing his Trumble Street home with his son, Dr. George Fuller Hawley, and daughter-in-law. In addition to being a physician, the younger Dr. Hawley was also a businessman: he was President of the Farnham Typesetter Company and, along with Mark Twain, invested heavily in James Paige’s failed typesetting machine. If the elder Hawley paid attention to local gossip, he would have known the city was awash in rumors concerning his son’s activities. There was even a rising sense of impending danger, a tension that finally rose to a crescendo on the morning of January 10. Later that day the younger Dr. Hawley returned home in need of his father’s medical attention. He was suffering from a gunshot wound.

Rumors and Growing Tension

“For a long time there have been vague reports of some such state of things as should not exist, in regard to the Doctor and Mrs. Webster.” So reported the Hartford Times that evening, as it broke the dramatic news of events earlier that day. Mrs. Webster, whose maiden name was Clara Hay, was the wife of Charles H. Webster1, an insurance agent. They lived at 10 Allen Place, near Trinity College, in a house that is no longer standing. As was typical of the gender standards of the time, male newspaper reporters had no qualms about commenting on her appearance as they investigated the shocking news story she was involved in that January morning. The initial Times story described her as “a pretty person,” while two days later, a Times reporter who interviewed her at her home wrote, “Mrs. Webster is about 29 or 30 years of age — rather a good-looking blonde, with three lovely little children, 5, 7 and 9 years old — the eldest and youngest being girls.” A New York Times reporter, however, observed that, “She is about 35 years of age, not particularly fine looking in the face, but is well formed, and has a very attractive manner.”2

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As the New York Times coverage shows, the Hawley-Webster incident was sensational enough that it made headlines well beyond Hartford. A day after the growing tension between Dr. Hawley and Mrs. Webster’s husband finally exploded into violence, the New York Times provided important background information for its readers:

For a long time there have been stories in circulation that Dr. George F. Hawley, a young physician and son of Dr. George B. Hawley, one of the leading old-school practitioners here, has been on terms of intimacy with the wife of Charles H. Webster, of the insurance firm of Chapman & Webster. About four months ago the scandal became so notorious that it was a matter of common remark among the people of Hartford, all the parties being well known and moving in good social circles. At that time Mrs. Hawley left her husband’s house and went to her father’s, and it was reported that she took this step with a view to separate permanently from the Doctor; but, after an absence of a few weeks, she returned and was often seen in public with her husband, and it was then said that she went home in the first place on account of sickness in the family, and that the course of her husband, even if she knew of it, had nothing to do with her action.

Dr. Hawley must have known about the stories in circulation concerning him, and there is no doubt that some of his friends cautioned him about his movements, lest he might get himself into serious trouble. Further than this, Mr. Webster, who was disturbed over the frequent visits of the Doctor, knowing that they created talk, though he may not have known, and probably did not know, all that was going on, called upon Hawley and asked him to discontinue his calls; but this request did not serve its purpose, and Webster at last became thoroughly enraged. He and his wife have had much trouble recently, he accusing her of infidelity, and she charging him with unbecoming jealousy.

The following day the Hartford Times provided further interesting background details:

The jealousy of Webster towards Dr. Hawley has been shown for perhaps a year or two — and some local gossip and scandal has existed in reference to the Dr. and Mrs. Webster. About a year ago Webster says he borrowed $50 of Dr. Hawley — who was always ready to assist him. About six months ago Webster paid back this $50, and took from Dr. Hawley a receipt in full, for that money and for “all professional services” to date. On receiving this receipt, Webster said-

“Now, if I ever catch you in my house again, I’ll shoot you!”

Since that time both men would seem to have been more or less prepared for an encounter. Even at the above interview, Dr. Hawley, apprehending some assault (he is a much more powerful man than Webster), took with him his coachman, or hired man, who was left outside at the door, and he also had a policeman on call. It has been pretty well understood that both men have been armed for some time past.3

Mrs. Webster had finally had enough of her husband’s behavior and since Christmas time had made it clear that she wanted to visit her relatives in Newark. As per the Times (again the Hartford one):

Her husband objected, partly on account of the expense, and partly because he suspected another gentleman might also go down to Newark too. But the relatives afterwards sent up the funds for her to go with. Her husband still objected, and told her that if she would send back that money he would raise the means for her to go, but not at that time.4

Mrs. Webster was still determined to go, but her husband made it clear that if she were to leave, he would not tolerate her taking their three children with her. On the evening of January 9, she packed her bags. Mr. Webster went out the next morning, but “he gave notice to the Police that if she attempted to leave the city on any of the trains, to stop the children, if she had them with her, and let her go.”5 Mrs. Webster planned to take the 12:25 train.

Prelude to a Shoot Out

The initial Hartford Times story does not mention Mr. Webster as having concerns about the children that morning, which may be why he is twice described as “surprised” by what happened as he made his way home:

Shortly before noon Mr. Webster went out to his house, and was surprised to meet the children, all nicely dressed, coming up the street toward Washington street. The eldest girl started back, running, but he called and stopped her, and she answered his question where she was going by saying “Only just up there to Washington street.” But the little boy spoke up and said they were going up, by mamma’s direction, to take a carriage to the Union railway station. Somewhat surprised, Mr. Webster went to the house, and found the front door ajar.

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An Exchange of Gunfire

As described in the New York Times account:

As he entered the front hall he heard his wife close and lock a door up stairs. He immediately went up there to see what she was about. She was closing another door leading to the children's room as he came up to her, and when he asked her what she was about, she said that she was locking up preparatory to carrying out her purpose of leaving town. But he now began to be suspicious, and demanded the key to the front room, which is a bedroom. His wife refused to give it to him, and he then went to the door and kicked it in.

He had his pistol in his pocket and as he vigorously kicked the door, it went off, tearing a hole in the fabric of his coat, but causing him no injury. As the dramatic account in the Hartford Times relates:

His wife, hearing the explosion, rushed to the stairs, and called to know what was the matter?

“I’m going to get in here!” was her husband’s answer.

“What for?” demanded his wife.

“You’ll see!” said the husband, now thoroughly aroused, as he dealt a kick which burst the lock and threw open the door. THERE HE SAW DR HAWLEY sitting by a window, and, immediately drawing and cocking his revolver, he FIRED AT HIM.

Returning to the New York Times account:

When Webster got into the room Hawley was sitting in a chair. The former fired immediately while the Doctor was about rising from the chair. The Doctor then pointed his own pistol and fired, Webster retreating and holding his left hand up as a cover to his head and breast. The shot went into Webster’s hand, passing in below the knuckle of the little finger, and passing through to the thumb, making an ugly but not a dangerous wound. Webster got out of the room, but went directly back again, and fired a second shot and then a third.

Webster then fled. Dr. Hawley had been wounded, but he managed to get home where his father tended to his injury. One of Webster’s shots had been absorbed by a bunch of cigars in his overcoat pocket, otherwise it would have penetrated the doctor’s body near his heart. Another bullet had penetrated the middle of his right arm. Dr. Hawley senior was unable to locate it, and the Hartford Times reported two days later that “The ball is embedded so deeply that it is not deemed prudent to probe thoroughly at present.”

After the Violent Encounter

As the Hartford Times described the immediate aftermath:

After the shooting, Webster ran out to his mother’s, Mrs. McMaster’s, on Washington street, and got a towel which was bound about his mangled hand. He then hailed the Washington street bus and told the driver to drive him to the office of Dr. Chamberlain.6

As for his wife, the Courant explained:

Meanwhile Mrs. Webster had left the house and proceeded to the depot to take the 12:25 train. Word had been received there through a friend of Mr. Webster's to have her detained, and ex-Detective Cowles and Depot Officer Cushman stopped her as she was boarding the train. At first she resented the detention and demanded to know by what authority the police could prevent her going away. She was told politely that arrests could always be made by the police on immediate information, and that all that was wanted of her was to convey her in a carriage to the police station.7

At the station,

Prosecuting Attorney Hyde was notified of the affair soon after its occurrence, and had an interview with all the parties concerned. Mr. Webster was not disposed to make any complaint, as he admitted firing the first shot, and in the face of the facts the shooting by Dr. Hawley was in self-defense, and the latter was in no physical condition to declare his purposes fully as to the prosecution of his assailant. The attorney, therefore, decided to let the matter rest for the time being and await results. When this decision was arrived at, Mr. Webster joined his wife and children at the station house, and all took a carriage together and proceeded to their home in Allen Place. Mrs. Webster was desirous of taking an evening train and going to her friends in New Jersey, but insisted on taking her children, which Mr. Webster opposed, and finally she remained at home over night. What further action will be taken by them is not known.8

Two days later, the Hartford Times observed:

It is a notable circumstance that both the wives of the wounded men sat up with them nearly all night, Saturday night, bathing the wounds, and ministering to their husbands very faithfully. In regard to Mrs. Webster, she and her husband were apparently living together harmoniously yesterday and to-day; but it is uncertain what the issue of this trouble may be.

Mr. Webster’s Account

It did not take long for reporters to descend upon the scene to interview the participants. There is an almost Rashomon-like aspect to some of the variations among their stories and in the reporter’s accounts, including the exact sequence of the gunshots. On January 12, the Courant printed the account Mr. Webster gave later in the day, after the shooting:

“I have had more trouble in my family than you probably know anything about. When my wife said she was going away I told her I had no objection but she could not take the children. As I went into the house I had no idea that any one was there. My wife was just locking the door to the childrens’ room and I asked her what she was about and she said she was getting ready to go away, and was locking all the doors. I tried the door to the front room and found that it was locked and she said she had the key and when I asked for it she refused to give it to me. I then for the first time had a suspicion that some one was in that room, and as she would not give me the key I kicked the door in. My pistol was in my outside coat pocket, and when I kicked the door the pistol went off and made the hole in my coat which you seen (showing a big hole in the skirt of the coat.) When I got into the room Dr. Hawley was sitting in a chair and I fired, and then he returned the shot, and it hit me in the hand. I had my hand up to my face when I saw he was going to shoot, and receiving the bullet there probably saved my life.”

Mr. Webster was very much excited when talking of the affair, and several friends who were about advised him to make no statement whatever, for they thought it might compromise him if a legal prosecution should follow. He said, however, he had nothing to conceal and wanted to tell the whole thing just as it was. This was at the station house in a back room, while Mrs. Webster and her children were in the chief’s office.

Dr. Hawley’s Account

The same Courant piece gives Dr. Hawley’s version of events, in which he presents his relationship with Mrs. Webster as completely innocent and vividly describes the reactions of Mr. Webster:

The family of Mrs. Webster I have known for many years, and l have rendered professional services on numerous occasions to different ones, and particularly to Mrs. Webster’s mother, who had a difficulty [gall stones] which was treated so as to greatly relieve her. Mr. Webster has pursued a remarkable course toward me, at one time threatening me and again expressing his regrets that he should have made any threats. I have never called at his house except in the must open manner, just as I have made calls at other places in making my regular visits to patients. There has been no concealment whatever, as there was no occasion for any. Webster, however, has as I have said, displayed an excitable disposition at times, but as he took occasion in other moods to disclaim any hostility toward me, I attributed his conduct to a passionate whim and treated both himself and family as if nothing on his part had occurred. Sometimes I have heard that he proposed to shoot me, and when I saw him be would disclaim having made any threats and appear to be friendly. Thus I had no cause to feel that his enmity was at all deep-seated, or that there was anything more in his disturbed moments than a feeling of jealousy of which I was the innocent cause.

“The trouble yesterday was evidently brough about wholly by the man’s rage, caused by the fact of which I knew nothing at the time, that his wife had decided to go to her friends against his wishes. I had no design of calling at his house and it was the merest accident that led me there. I drove in company with my hired man, Thomas Cosgrove, out to Trinity college to see Mr. Kneeland, a student. We went out through Vernon street and returned by the way of Allen Place. As we passed Webster’s house his wife came out on the side stoop and called to me, saying that she wished to see me for a moment. I went in, telling Thomas I would be out immediately. Mrs. Webster said she was going away on the 12:25 train—it was then going on 12 — and wanted me to write the prescription which had been of so much benefit to her mother to take with her. I was not expecting to stay there five minutes. My impression is that Mrs. Webster had her cloak and hat on ready to go to the depot, the children were dressed ready to go. I stepped into an adjoining room from the hall and was about writing the prescription when Webster burst in in a furious manner. I thought he was under the influence of liquor. That he intended any mischief I had not the least suspicion, and the only warning I had that he designed to harm me was when he straightened his arm out and fired a pistol shot, immediately following it with another.9 As quick as I could I drew a small revolver and was on my feet and fired in return and he screamed, making a terrible noise, and ran into the hall. I followed him, not knowing then whether I was badly hurt or not, and could have killed him as well as not, as he was crouched in a corner with his hand up to his face. His attitude had such a cowardly appearance that I had pity upon him and concluded to let him alone. I then returned to the room to see how badly I was wounded, and hardly got in when Webster came to the door and fired at my back, but did not hit me. I went after him again and he ran in mortal fear. Even then I could have shot him, but I desisted and saw no more of him. I had my overcoat on, and the shots went through it as you will see by examining it. One shot struck me in the breast in the region of the heart, but went against a bunch of five cigars in my vest-pocket. But for the cigars the shot would probably have killed me. The other shot hit me in the arm just below the shoulder.

“After I had examined and found where I was hit I went out and could not see Thomas, my man. He had a four-year old colt driving and had driven down the street to keep him exercising. I started for the hospital thinking I could get there well enough, when I met Thomas and came home.

“Of course the affair is an unfortunate one, but there has been nothing on my part intentionally done to provoke it. I have simply acted in good faith toward all the parties concerned, and Mr. Webster has no justification for his impulsive act.”

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Mrs. Webster’s Account

On the morning of January 12, a Hartford Times reporter visited the Webster home on Allen Place, describing it as “a single, frame dwelling, quite cosy [sic], and modern in style.” He noted that “Mrs. Webster said she desired to leave for Newark, but her husband would not permit her to take the children, and she would not go with-out them.” Mrs. Webster claimed “Dr. Hawley was a friend of the family; that he sometimes called as a friend, as well as upon professional duties; and that there has never been any criminal intimacy between herself and him, and nothing more than friendly relations.” She also stated that she had not, in fact, invited the doctor in to write out a prescription. Instead, he had entered the door (left ajar by the children) on his own volition. Noticing him in the hallway downstairs, she invited him up, but when she heard her husband return, “knowing that he was excitable, and did not like Dr. Hawley, she told the Doctor to stay in the bed-room.” As for the locked door, she said, “the Doctor must have fastened the door from the inside.” When her husband was bursting the door open,

his pistol, being in his overcoat pocket, probably struck the door; the hammer (says Mr. Webster) was down, and the blow on the door discharged it, tearing out a large piece from the side of his coat.

The bed-room door was shown to the reporter. There was a bolt on the inside which was still fastened in its socket, and the bolt of the lock was also pushed into its socket. The casing of the door was broken by Mr. Webster, and the door was burst in by the giving way of the casing.

In the same piece, the reporter proceeds to debunk her claim about not having invited the doctor in herself to write a prescription:

When Mrs. Webster was stopped at the railway station on Saturday by Officer Cowles and asked to accompany him to the station-house she became very indignant, and showed considerable temper. On being informed that her detention was legal she went with the officer.

On entering the office of the chief-of- police she accosted him in a very indignant manner, and wanted to know if a person could be arrested without the proper papers. She was informed that she was not under arrest, but detained until certain matters could be investigated. She then held her peace for a time.10

At last she volunteered the information that she had called Dr. Hawley into the house to give her the recipe formerly given to her mother (thus corroborating the statement made by Dr. Hawley).

What To Make of It All

It seems no chargers were ever filed. The only further mention of the incident I’ve come across is a notice in the Hartford Courant of May 11, 1880:

The pistol ball lodged in the left hand of Mr. Charles M. Webster at the time of his shooting affray with Dr. Hawley last winter, was removed yesterday by Dr. Jarvis, who administered an anesthetic before performing the operation. The ball, of 32- inch calibre, and considerably flattened by contact with the bones, was found lodged near the base of the thumb, having entered near the lower joint of the little finger.

There is so much left unsaid and open to speculation in these accounts from January 10-12. Was the doctor really only there to fill out a prescription for Mrs. Webster’s mother? Could he have been planning to accompany her to New Jersey? If he told his hired man he would only be in the house for five minutes, why did Cosgrove decide to exercise the horse by taking it around the block?

Dr. Hawley (born 1844) was in Europe when his father, the elder Dr. Hawley, passed away in 1883. He and his wife, Anna Coleman Newton Hawley, were divorced by 1885, when the doctor married the second of his three wives. By the first decade of the twentieth century, Dr. Hawley had relocated to Chicago, where he died in 1917. He was a throat specialist who invented an atomizer in 1904 that was designed to spray both oil and water (one of them is now in the collections of the Smithsonian).

As for Charles McCloud Webster (born 1847), he is listed in the 1881 Geer’s Hartford Directory as living at a different address in Hartford than the house where the shooting took place. He continued in the city as a prominent insurance underwriter until his death in 1927. He also married three times. He and Lucy Ely Fox (1852-1910), whom he married in 1882, had four children. I’m not sure of what happened to his first wife, Clara Hay Webster, who was once caught between two armed men who ended their dispute with gunfire but, thankfully, no loss of life.

A story about lawyers and their cigar butts that I’ve wanted to share for a few years now. In my most recent video on YouTube, I explain why a historical plaque on a building on Trumbull Street is incorrect. The plaque indicates that the building, which is at the end of Trumbull near Bushnell Park (and includes Salute Restaurant), was once the location of the childhood home of celebrated landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900). In the video, I explain why the plaque is wrong and I identify the actual site of the Church home, which was in the middle of the block on the west side of Trumbull Street that is part of the Hartford Civic Center/Peoples Bank Areana today. The family previously lived on Temple Street, where Frederic was born in a house on a site that is now part of Constitution Plaza. Frederic’s father, the jeweler Joseph Church (1793-1876), later moved to another house on Asylum Street that (you guessed it) is also now lost. As for the old Church family home on Trumbull Street, it became the residence of Dr. George B. Hawley, one of the city’s most respected physicians. Dr. Hawley left the house after about 15 years in December of 1881, and it was soon demolished to make way for the Hartford County Building, home of the county court.

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Two notable Hartford architects, George Keller and John C. Mead, submitted competing designs for the building in 1882 and the county commissioners accepted the plans of the latter, which were described in the Hartford Courant as being “modern French Renaissance in style.” Additions were made to the building in the first decade o the twentieth century. A few years ago, I released a video about “Trumbull Street Before the Hartford Civic Center,” which covered the courthouse, as well as other lost buildings. At the time, I wanted to include material from an article, “Lawyers Like Old Library Room,” that appeared in the Courant on May 27, 1912. This piece gives a vivid and entertaining slice of life depiction of the lawyers who frequented the building and enjoyed smoking. I guess I thought it was a bit too long to quote at length in that video. I thought of dedicating an entire video to reading the article and utilizing stock footage of men puffing on cigars for the images (the fact that today, just a few years later, I could easily generate AI images shows how much has changed so quickly!), but the theme of smoking would certainly not have been amenable to the YouTube algorithm! In any case, I’ve decided to quote the entire article below. The section headings are my own. Also, please refer to the footnotes for my annotations about some of the individuals mentioned in the article (lots of obscure tidbits of Hartford history, including links to some historic houses that are still around today!).

Butts on the Radiator

There isn't a room in any building in this city where more good stories are told in the cousre [sic] of a week, a month or a year, than the dark room in the county building. The room used to be the bar library, but a few years ago, when an addition was built to the building, a new library was provided for and the addition made the old room dark. For some years the room has been used as a lounging and smoking place for lawyers. It opens into the courtroom and when a lawyer is waiting for a case in which he is interested to be reached, the room is a handy place to lounge or smoke in, and with the lawyers it is the most popular room in the building when there is any lounging to be done by them at the court house.

Generally on Fridays during the court year there are more lawyers in the room than at other times, and while some are discussing current events, others are telling stories and others are endeavoring to adjust cases in which they are interested. There are several chairs in the room and in the center is a long imitation mahogany table, but about the only thing that the table is ever used for is to sit upon. Sometimes lawyers will be sitting on both sides of it and on the ends. In one corner of the room, a corner nearest the door to the courtroom, is a radiator. It has been many years since the heat was turned on in the radiator, but the radiator has its usefulness. When lawyers are in the room smoking and they are told that the case for which they have been waiting has been reached, they will make for the radiator and lay their cigar butts on it, expecting to take the butts again when they finish in court. Sometimes they get the butts and sometimes they don't. At times there will be from a dozen to twenty or more butts resting on the radiator, and as lawyers come out they take the butts. Not always does a man get his own butt, but he gets one that he thinks was the one he laid down and he goes off. Later, as the number of butts gets less, a lawyer will walk up for a butt and discover that some one has taken his, and he will ask, "Who took my butt?" Finding that his own butt is gone he will take out a fresh cigar, and if he hasn't got one he will hold up some other lawyer for a cigar and then will proceed to blaze away upon it.

Hyde’s Flying Cigarette Butt

Alvan Waldo Hyde1 had a case coming before Judge Howard J. Curtis last Friday and as he waited he sat on the table in the dark room and lighted a cigarette. He engaged in conversation with some others in the room as he puffed away. As he made a movement to remove the cigarette from his mouth, a man who was talking to him was emphasizing what he said with a gesture of the hand. His hand struck the hand of the police commissioner [Hyde], knocking the cigarette from it, and the mystery of the lighted cigarette begins.

Mr. Hyde slid off the table to pick up the lighted cigarette, but there was no cigarette to be seen. It wasn't on the floor anywhere and as several of the lawyers had seen it disappear, a half dozen of them, at least, crouched over to inspect the carpeted floor. But there wasn't any cigarette to be seen and one of the lawyers asked, "Where in the devil could that cigarette have gone?"

"Well, that's funny," said another, "What could have become of it?"

After a half dozen had searched the floor carefully without discovery the cigarette, all straightened up and began to comment on the strangeness of the disappearance. William T. Lynch2, who was there, suggested that it might be in some one's pocket. Then a search of coat pockets was begun and sure enough the lighted cigarette was found in the pocket of one of the men in the room. The cigarette was one of the kind that, when once lighted, keeps alight until it burns itself out. But for the suggestion which Mr. Lynch made the chances are that a few minutes later there would have been a man walking around the courtroom with his clothing on fire.

Clarke’s Missing Butt

Sidney E. Clarke3 walked down the corridor and into the dark room a few minutes later. He made straight for the radiator and scrutinized closely the dozen or fifteen cigar butts which rested on it. Mr. Hyde had got back on the table. He didn't have to ask Mr. Clarke what he was looking for, as he knew right well, but he did say, "What are you looking for?" "I'm looking for my butt," said Mr. Clarke, “but some one has taken it.” “Well, take another," said Mr. Hyde, as he pointed to the "soldiers" on the radiator. "No, I guess not,” said Mr. Clarke, as he smiled and walked out of the room.

Judge William A. Arnold4 during this time was in the courtroom telling Judge Curtis5 what his view of a certain legal proposition was [,] and about the time that Mr. Clarke left [,] Judge Arnold finished his argument and walked into the dark room. He took a seat on the table and after a short conversation he said, as he placed his hand to his waistcoat pocket and took out a cigar, "I guess I'll smoke Sid Clarke's cigar." Then there was a laugh and as Judge Arnold asked what the joke was, he examined, the cigar as if he suspected that it was one of the explosive kind. He was told what Mr. Clarke had said about some one having taken his cigar from the radiator. Judge Arnold explained that he was in Mr. Clarke's office Thursday, when Mr. Clarke had given him the cigar, recommending it highly, He had forgotten that he had it in his pocket until that minute and he proceeded to smoke up.

I want to tell you about a notable tree, planted in 1773, that stood on Arch Street in Hartford for nearly a century and a quarter. It’s also the subject of my latest YouTube video, so you can read the text version below, watch the video (remember to hit the “like” button!), or both! The tree grew across from the Phoenix Iron Works (which I wrote about in a recent piece here on Substack). In 1896, the year the tree was taken down, both the iron works and the property where the tree stood were owned by George S. Lincoln and Co.

The Ledyard Elm was Planted by a Famous Connecticut Traveler

In April of 1773, young John Ledyard was a freshman at Dartmouth College, which was only four years old at the time. Ledyard was about to start on the first of many adventurous journeys that would take him around the world. Having felled a tree, he proceeded to carve a dugout canoe. He then set off down the Connecticut River, leaving behind his studies and an unpaid tuition bill. The restless Ledyard had earlier alarmed the college authorities when he’d disappeared for two months the previous year to hike through the New Hampshire woods. This time, the determined Ledyard paddled all the way down the river to Hartford, where he diverted up the Little River (later called the Park River) and disembarked at the home of his uncle, Thomas Seymour. Ledyard then planted an elm across from his uncle’s house, on the banks of the Little River.

Born to a Mystic CT merchant captain who had been lost at sea, John Ledyard was a nephew of Col. William Ledyard, who would be slain in 1781 at the defense of Fort Griswold in Groton. While still a teenager in 1765, John Ledyard had been sent to Hartford to be educated. He was under the guardianship of his paternal grandfather, John Ledyard Esq., who lived along Arch Street. When Squire John died in 1771, Ledyard’s uncle Seymour, who lived nearby, became his guardian.

Having achieved his escape from Dartmouth, Ledyard eventually decided to head abroad, where he ended up becoming a royal marine. He was on Captain James Cook’s third and final voyage in the Pacific (1776-1780), in the course of which he is believed to have been the first Euro-American to be tattooed. The expedition, during which Capt. Cook was killed in Hawai’i, lasted over four years. Returning to the Atlantic, Ledyard was sent back to North America, but deserted the marines because he did not want to fight his fellow Americans in the Revolution. Back in New England, he wrote an account of his travels with Capt. Cook, entitled Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and in Quest of a North-West Passage, Between Asia & America, which was published in 1783.

The following year he traveled to Europe to seek backers for a fur-trading venture. This was unsuccessful, but encouraged by Thomas Jefferson, who was US Ambassador in Paris at the time, Ledyard embarked on an audacious new expedition, to travel across Russia and then cross the Baring Strait to North America, where he would make his way from Alaska all the way to Virginia. His daring journey was cut short in Siberia when, under suspicion of being a spy, he was arrested in Irkutsk on the orders of Catherine the Great. Having been deported from Russia, his next ambitious plan was to explore the interior of Africa, but before his new expedition got underway, he died in Cairo in 1789 at the age of 38, possibly from an overdose of sulfuric acid that was used to treat intestinal illness

The Ledyard Elm was a Landmark on Arch Street

Back in Hartford, the elm tree he had planted on the bank of the Little River grew to become a local landmark. It stood across Arch Street from Thomas Seymour’s House, which itself stood on part of the old home lot of Hartford founder Rev. Thomas Hooker. Thomas Seymour served as the first mayor of the city of Hartford, from its incorporation in 1784 until 1812. In 1824, he hosted the marquis de Lafayette at his home on Arch Street. Every morning, Seymour went for a swim in the Little River, even when he had to break through a coating of ice!

In the 1780s, Seymour set up a grist mill just west of the elm. By 1824, this property was occupied by Ward’s Woolen Mill. Over the next few decades, the industrial development in the vicinity increased until the Seymour House became hemmed in to the north and west by the Phoenix Iron Works. The house was taken down in 1870 and replaced by an expansion of the Phoenix works. Throughout all of these changes, the tree continued to stand across the street. Thought to be the finest elm in the city, it was photographed in the 1800s by Frederick S. Brown, who was documenting Connecticut’s famous old trees. The author of an article on Connecticut’s most notable trees, that appeared in the New York Times on June 8, 1891, wrote:

In the deed conveying the property on which the elm stands to its present owners, is a clause according to the tree the right to “stand” until it “shall die a natural death." It is still a grand and rugged old tree, apparently full of life and vigor, notwithstanding its trunk is gnarled and seamed with the work of time and weather. Many tourists and lovers visit it yearly. In the opinion of arboriculturists earth was banked about its roots once a great many years ago, since the trunk is smallest at the ground and the lower branches are near the earth. The trunk in its smallest part is 132 feet in circumference, and the shadow cast by the tree is 100 feet in diameter.

Sadly, a little over five years later, on November 19, 1896, the Hartford Courant reported:

The old elm tree had died and it was a very large tree. The park commission, who had charge of it, ordered it cut down and it has been sawed off piece by piece and removed so that not even the fence that it overhung has been hurt. The other large elm just east of it is now undergoing the same fate. One can get an idea of the changes that have taken place along the river bank from the fact that Mr. Lincoln himself distinctly recollects when steamboats drawing nine feet of water used to sail up Little River, and at an inlet, just east of where the foundry now stands, unloaded grain for Imlay's mills.

Thus came to an end a living piece of Hartford’s colonial history. The tree is gone, but John Ledyard’s journey down the Connecticut is a well-remembered part of the history of Dartmouth College and inspired the founding of the Ledyard Canoe Club in 1920. The area of Arch Street has gone through even more dramatic changes since 1896, not least of which was the burying of the Little River through a conduit underground in the 1940s. Most recently, the apartments at 81 Arch Street were completed in 2019. They partly occupy the site where the Ledyard Elm had witnessed almost a century and a quarter of change in downtown Hartford, CT.

I recently released a compilation of my videos about Pearl Street. While so much of my focus is on lost buildings, there is one artifact of old Pearl Street that you might have come across elsewhere in the city. This is the nearly 9,000-pound fire alarm bell that served the city for decades and is now preserved on the grounds of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History. The original bell was hung in a tower behind the Pearl Street fire station in 1867, but some years later a crack appeared, so it was recast in 1881. It then remained in use for another 40 years, a frequently heard part of everyday life in downtown Hartford for decades.

Setting Up the Original Fire Alarm Bell (1867)

Hartford’s old volunteer fire service transitioned to a professional paid fire department in 1864. In early years, the city relied on local church bells to sound the alarm, as the following notice, that appeared in the Hartford Courant on April 7, 1865 reveals:

The chief engineer of the fire department has had three iron boxes constructed in a substantial manner for holding keys of admission to churches where bells are to be used for giving fire alarms. But three churches have been designated - the South Presbyterian, North Congregational and Pearl street - and the bells of these only will be employed in case of fire. This will avoid confusion, and prevent false alarms to a great extent. The boxes are securely locked, each member of the police force carrying a key, and in case of fire the patrolmen nearest either of the churches will attend to the bell ringing. At the South and North churches the boxes were put up yesterday, and the box containing the key to the Pearl street church will be placed outside of the new police headquarters in a day or two.

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This situation changed three years later, when the new fire bell arrived, as the Courant reported on October 18, 1867:

The new bell for the fire alarm tower was swung into position yesterday. The tower, which is in the rear of the Hook and Ladder and Sack and Bucket houses on Pearl street, is over 50 feet high, and very strongly founded and built. The bell is suspended from a strong frame work near the top. It weighs about 9,000 pounds, which is double the weight of Christ church bell, the largest church bell in the city. It was sounded by striking it with a hammer yesterday noon, and its tone appeared quite different from any of the other large bells in the city. The tongue and ringing apparatus are expected to arrive to-day. The bell is the work of Jones & Co., of Troy, and it was hung by John Frost, of New York. It will be some days yet before it will be in working order as an alarm, since the telegraphic apparatus is yet to be put on.

Part of creating the new telegraphic system involved setting up a series of signal boxes throughout the city. As the Courant explained November 25, 1867:

These boxes will be of iron, similar in appearance and construction to those in use in Boston and other cities, and will be double, containing an inner box, inaccessible to any one except the superintendent or persons in charge of the telegraph. This inner box contains the electrical apparatus, necessary for giving the alarm. The outer box can be opened by a key in charge of some responsible person living near by, and a person discovering a fire will obtain this key, unlock the box, and give the alarm, which is done by simply pulling a slide. Each box is numbered, and a single pull of the slide strikes the number of the box on the alarm bell in the signal tower, and also on the gongs in the various engine houses. The arrangement of the signal boxes and of the machinery in the tower, which is very ingenious, is under the supervision of Mr. Edwin Rogers, of Boston, who has put them up in nearly every place where it has been heretofore introduced.

In 1870, Rogers patented various fire alarm telegraph devices. The system of he set up in Hartford would grow to include 170 boxes connected by 50 miles of wire. Dozens and dozens of people held keys throughout the city. The bell also provided time checks at noon, 6 PM, and 9 PM each day. When Hartford’s system was still being installed, some residents were “alarmed” to hear the big bell unexpectedly ring, as the Courant reported on December 6:

Workmen have been engaged for the past two or three days in stringing the wires for the new fire alarm telegraph, and this part of the work is nearly accomplished. No signal boxes are yet put up, and the striking apparatus necessary to give an alarm by electricity is not yet in the tower. It is expected to arrive from New York in a day or two. The big bell in the tower was struck for about an hour on Thursday noon, causing many people to believe that there was a fire. It was only done to show the police how to give an alarm. The bell has since been placed in charge of the police by the commissioners of the fire department, and will not hereafter be rung except in the case of fire.

The firehouse and fire bell tower at 43 Pearl Street were located down a driveway to the rear of a three-story Italianate-style brownstone building at 39 Pearl Street. The office building in front was erected in 1853 for the Hartford Life and Health Insurance Company and was eventually acquired by the State Savings Bank.

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The Recast Fire Alarm Bell (1881-1921)

The city’s fire alarm system faced a crisis 14 years after the bell’s installation when it developed a crack. On March 2, 1881, the Courant reported on the meeting of the fire commissioners the previous evening:

The matter of furnishing a new bell for fire alarm purposes was under discussion, and after a long consideration of the present situation in consequence of the cracked bell, it was voted that the whole matter be referred to the telegraph and building committees with power. Various plans were talked of, one being the erection of three or more bell towers at various points of the city with as many bells; another was to attach bells to some of the engine house towers. The matter will be thoroughly investigated and the most feasible plans adopted. The question is one of great importance, for as long as our fire department is of the call system there must be a sufficient public alarm.

The commissioners eventually decided to have the old bell recast by the same company that had made the original bell, Jones & Co. of Troy, New York. While waiting for the new bell to arrive, the city reverted to a system similar to what had been in place before the bell was first set up in 1867. The bells of three downtown churches were called into service, this time Christ Church and the Pearl Street and South Congregational Churches, with Asylum Hill Congregational Church also under consideration. As the Courant noted on March 25, “Until the new fire bell is hung the fire boxes should not be pulled, as it will only damage the electric system without accomplishing any good.” Back when the system was first set up, the paper had described (on January 30, 1868) how to activate the alarm: “Go to the nearest box to the fire, unlock the outside door, pull the hook down one, to the bottom of the slot, and shut the door. Caution:—Never pull the hook while the large bell, or the gong in the box is striking.”

When the recast bell finally arrived, it weighed 98 pounds less than the original one. Soon an arrangement was made for the city to be reimbursed for the difference in weight. On May 5, 1881, the Courant provided a detailed description of the hanging of the new bell:

The new fire alarm bell was hoisted into the bell tower yesterday. It was brought on a heavy truck to the ally way which runs in from Main street adjoining Sisson & Butler's store, and to get it into the tower a section of the fence and the side of the lower floor of the tower, now occupied as a stable for Chief Eaton's horse, were torn away. The great ball, weighing 8,175 pounds, was removed from the truck and slid to a position in the center of the tower floor. The tower, erected in 1867, is of massive construction, with uprights of twelve-inch timber braced by six inch stuff. Sam Cooper and a dozen men set to work to hoist the bell to its place. To the beam to which it will hang, as high up as a five story building, the tackle was securely fastened. There was a large three-sheave block with six ropes, and a four-sheave block with eight. One lot of ropes fell to one side of the bell and the other on the opposite side. Brought under the ball were two inch and a half ropes, coming up vertically around it, and held close to it near the top by a rope passing around. From one block the rope passed through a snatch-block fastened to the plank flooring (which was braced) and thence to a winch with two crank-handles and four men. This stood near the bell. The rope from the other block passed through another snatch-block, and ran out through the old truck room, near whose front door another winch was placed.

Everything being ready, Sam Cooper went up into the tower to watch the upper fastenings and the word was given. At a snail-like pace, but steadily and surely, the great mass of metal lifted from its resting place and swung in air. It went slowly upward, watched by a curious crowd, whose members were careful to keep well out of danger in the event of a smash. By 4 o'clock it was raised to the top, but was slightly out of line, and the shifting of the tackle was necessitated, the bell meantime resting upon heavy two-inch planks stretching across from the beams. The hanging will probably be completed to-day, and by Saturday, at furthest, the bell will be in connection with the striking apparatus and everything ready for service.

The reinstalled bell lasted for another 40 years. In 1921, the State Savings Bank acquired the fire department property, which by then was the Squad A fire house, behind its own Pearl Street building. It soon demolished all of these structures and replaced them with a new bank building, designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris (which would last until 1972). George W. Hamilton, who was superintendent of the fire alarm system from 1883 until 1919, was on hand to officiate as the bell marked the noon hour for the last time on May 25, 1921. As the Courant observed the following day:

The discontinuance of the big bell means there will be no warning stroke for fires, no ringing of the box number, no recall and no time stroke for the benefit of the public. The only notice of a fire will be from the traffic horns at a few points around the center and from the sirens on the fire apparatus itself. Chief John C. Moran of the fire department said yesterday that the loss of the bell would, mean nothing as far as the safety of the city was concerned. He pointed out that the traffic sirens were entirely adequate. “These horns," Superintendent Sullivan said, “can make a clear boulevard of Main street in a jiffy in the middle of the day.”

The fire commissioners donated the fire alarm bell to the Connecticut Historical Society in 1931 and in 1953 it was relocated to the Society (now the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History)’s property where it can be found today.

Going back to the earliest days of old Hartford, in 1633, a few years before the arrival of Thomas Hooker and the English settlers, the Dutch established an outpost called the House of Hope near the junction of the Connecticut River and the Little (aka Park aka Hog) River. It existed for about twenty years, even as the settlement of Hartford grew up right next door, until the First Anglo-Dutch War, when the colonists finally seized all the Dutch land in the vicinity. There is a lot of uncertainty about what this trading post (also called a fort because it had a blockhouse, garrison, and cannons) looked like and where exactly it was located. Below, I want to focus on the latter question and mention what various sources say about it. Some have placed the fort on Dutch Point, the now lost peninsula formed where the Little River (now buried in a conduit) met the “Great River” (the Connecticut). Others place it to the west, on the opposite side of the Little River, across from Dutch Point. In one of my videos about Dutch Point, I followed William DeLoss Love, who places it on the west side of the Little River. He describes its situation as follows:

There is no doubt as to the location of the House of Hope. It was on the one-acre tract beside the Little River and adjoining the landing place, from which a lane twenty-four feet wide led to the “highway from ye meadow gate to the Indian Land.” This road ran alongside of the bouwerie between which and the lane about eight acres had been granted to Andrew Bacon and George Steele. Across the stream eastward of the fort, was the neck that connected the low land of Dutch Point with the Little Meadow, so that the House of Hope was not far in a direct line from the Connecticut River. The mouth of the stream provided a good harbor. DeVries describes this location in these words: “This redoubt stands upon a plain on the margin of the river and alongside it runs a creek to a high wood land.” The map of the Great River in 1666, while its testimony may not have great weight in such a matter, places the “Huys de Hoop” on the south side of the stream, and not upon the Connecticut River. Moreover this location alone meets the conditions of the Dutch authorities who place the fort near the bouwerie and yet where the fence erected by the English cut it off from that tract.1

Love quotes David Pietersz de Vries, a Dutch explorer who visited the House of Hope in 1639. A fuller quotation from the 1853 translation reads:

The 9th, arrived with the yacht at the House of Hope, where one Gysbert Van Dyck commanded with fourteen or fifteen soldiers. This redoubt stands upon a plain on the margin of the river, and alongside it runs a creek to a high woodland, out of which comes a valley which makes this kill, and where the English, in spite of us, have begun to build up a small town, and had built a fine church and over a hundred houses.2

An alternate translation, quoted in the early 1850s by Isaac William Stuart, under the pen name Scaeva, reads:

In the morning of the 7th [June,] we came opposite de Versche Riviere [the Connecticut.] We went up the river, and on the 9th arrived with my yacht at the fort het huys de Hoop, where we found one Gysbert Van Dyck as commander, with 14 or 15 soldiers. This fort is situated near the river on a small creek, forming there a fall. The English had also begun to build there a town (Hartford) against our will, and had already a fine church and more than a hundred houses erected.3

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Scaeva thought the fort was on Dutch Point itself, although the translation he used, which indicates it was “near” the river on the “small creek” (the Little River) could support Love’s location. Returning to Love, he thought that the scattering of old bricks from the House of Hope over the centuries might have misled people as to the site of the fort:

The ruins of this historic station of Dutch soldiers and traders survived for many a day. A burying ground near it was discovered by chance in 1852. It is thought to have been the resting place of some of the inmates, who died during those early years. In 1819, when Dr. Abiel Holmes visited the place, he found there only some decayed timbers and a few Dutch bricks,4 one of which is preserved among the exhibits of the Connecticut Historical Society. In time these bricks became scattered, and the finding of them elsewhere has misled some, as to the fort’s location. William Imlay, it is said, at last removed the mound of earth and débris to fill a swale on the north side of the stream A portion of this historic acre has passed peacefully into the possession of the City of Hartford, where its people might fittingly place a memorial to the buried hopes of their old neighbors.5

In a letter on April 9, 1810, Noah Webster wrote “I have seen some of the pieces of bricks belonging to that house, lying on the banks of the Connecticut. They were of a light color, like the bricks of some old houses which I have seen in New York or Albany.”6 A contemporary description of the Dutch lands at Hartford, that were seized by the English in 1653, is quoted in an 1848 work:

One parcel lying in the south meadow containing by estimation twenty-three acres and a half, (be it more or less,) and abutteth on the Great River [Connecticut] north, and on Capt. Cullett his land east, and on a highway leading from the meadow gate to the Indian land on the south, and on George Steele his land west. More, One parcel on the south meadow containing by estimation one acre, (be it more or less,) and abutteth on the landing place in the Little River on the east, and on the Little River north, and on the said Gibbons and Gregory their lands on the south. More, One parcel of land lying in the poynt of ye little meadow containing by estimacon three acres, (be it more or less,) and abutteth on the Little River south and west, and on Mr. Haines his land north, and on ye Great River east. More, One parcel being an island lying near the east side of ye Great River over against the south end of the little meadow and containeth by estimacon two acres, (be it more or less.”)7

Scaeva provides a lively depiction of this area as it existed in the early 1850s and explains that the site of the House of Hope had been washed away by the river:

And the mighty Connecticut, Reader — anticlimax or not — has swept away every vestige of the island on its east side which belonged to the Dutch, and every spoonful of the elevated solid ground on which — out in the present stream — just at the mouth of Little River — the House of Hope was erected. But of this House itself one memorial does remain — a single hard, brittle Holland brick, of a yellowish hue, which the late Sheldon Wood bridge, Esq., of this city, some forty years ago, picked up, on the river bank, close by the site of the old Fort. Here it is now, on our own mantelpiece, side by side — fit company — with a large oyster shell which Noah’s deluge left one thousand feet above the level of the sea, on the coast of Patagonia.

The main part of the Dutch Land on the west side of the Connecticut, also remains — dwindled it is true, on its eastern bound, by the invading river, but the bulk of it remains. Would you trace it, Reader? Then walk down to a point on the south bank of Little River opposite the southwest corner of the Steam Saw Mill. You stand now upon the northwest angle of the Dutch property. Now move on, in a straight line, to a mere-stone which you will find sunk on the north side of the road leading through the South Meadow. Thence follow the line of the Meadow road south-eastwardly, to a point which is about four feet east of Michael Chauncey’s Tobacco Shed. Thence proceed north-eastwardly, in a line at right angles with the road over which you have just passed, to the bank of the Connecticut. Thence wind along this bank up to the point from which you started. You have now perambulated the Dutch Meadow! It’s something of a walk — but don’t mind that! Take breath, and then pass up, a short distance, to the present Town Landing on Little River. Stop there, and look up stream. You will then see a small strip of land, of about one acre, which hugs the water on the north — is bounded by a fence on the south — by a row of sycamore trees on the west — and by yourself on the east. This also was a part of the old Dutch property — and as you look south, you will see the old road — it is still maintained — over which the Dutch used to come from their Fort to the Landing Place where you now stand, and which they claimed as their own. Pass across the river now and over to the Steam Planing Mills of Taylor & Company. Go about fourteen rods below these Mills and stop. Directly across your path now, from river to river, ran once a fence, well remembered by many of our present citizens. It was the identical fence which in old times separated the Settlers of Hartford from the Dutch — and all the land you see before you, environed by the two rivers, belonged to the Dutch, as its name — Dutch Point — to this day commemorates.8

Scaeva also notes the Dutch burial yard: “In excavating ground on the south side of Little River, nearly opposite the Steam Saw Mill, a few years since, to supply earth for the establishment of Messrs. Tracy & Fales, many human bones, and several skeletons, almost entire, were disinterred — most of which crumbled easily, and “wasted away on exposure to the air.”9

Two Modern Conclusions

I’ve come across two contemporary researchers who place the House Hope at different spots. Historical artist Lee Tantillo has produced a painting for the New Netherlands Institute website that reconstructs the appearance of the fort based on his research. Noting Scaeva’s references that link the fort to Dutch Point, he places it on that peninsula and believes that the maps from the early twentieth century that placed the House of Hope on the bank west of the Point are incorrect. He explains that on the south side of the Little River was a sharp ridge and that the Dutch would not have built a fort in such a vulnerable position below that ridge. He also argues that a fort placed there would also have been too far from the Connecticut River and so “would serve no functional defensive purpose.”10

Paul R. Huey, an archaeologist, in an article about Dutch forts in New Netherland, is closer to Love’s placement of the fort. Huey believes it was “north of Van Dyke Avenue and east of Sheldon Street,” in the vicinity of modern buildings or under the current junction of Interstate 91 and the Conland-Whitehead Highway.”11 The modern building it would be under is the former Hartford Electric Light Company building (now Eversource) on Sheldon Street. If it was on Dutch Point, it would have been just to the east, along the river where (as shown in one of my videos) the Dutch Point Power Station once stood.

So where do you think the House of Hope stood? Was it near where the HELCO Building stands today, or was it on Dutch Point, as indicated by a recently placed historical landmark icon on Google Maps?

My latest YouTube video on Prospect Street is about the old houses that used to exist on the east side of Prospect Street. They were the Ellsworth House (which I’ve written about on Substack already), which was taken over by Travelers Insurance and replaced by Hartford Steamboiler; the house of Judge Francis Parsons which became Merrill’s Hotel and was taken down down by Travelers; the Thomas Day House and the Elizur Goodrich House, which were replaced by the Hartford Club; the Edward H. Perkins House, which was replaced by the Hunt Memorial Building of the Hartford Medical Society and then replced by a Travelers building that is now the UCONN School of Social Work; the Edward W. Wells House, which was replaced by the Elks Lodge; the George G. Williams House, which was later home to the Hartford Art Society and then the Knights of Columbus, before being taken down; the Ebenezer N. Kellog House, which was taken down for Travelers printing department building, a lot that has since been redeveloped by UCONN; and the Hunt-Chamberlin and George H. Clark Houses, which were replaced with the Hartford Times Building, now the centerpiece of UCONN’s Hartford campus.

Please check out this video and I plan to write more posts here soon!

I’m back to making videos! My latest is about the block of Prospect Street on the west side, between Central Row on the north and Atheneum Street on the south. This is all occupied by Travelers Insurance today, but it was once lined with historic houses. The oldest was once the home of Thomas Green, founder of the Hartford Courant. There were also the homes of Governor Joseph Trumbull and his son-in-law, Lucius F. Robinson, who founded one of the city’s oldest law firms, as well as the home of the man who inspired his uncle to donate the Hungerford Library (now a museum) to the town of Harwinton. Many of these houses were later used by social clubs, including the Hartford Club, the Colonial Club (founded by eligible bachelors, which later merged with the Hartford Club), and the Touro Club, founded by some of the city’s prominent Jewish leaders, including many downtown merchants. The only structure to survive demolition along this stretch was the Wadsworth Barn, where George Washington once stabled his horse. It was moved to Lebanon, Connectiuct.

Rev. Thomas Hooker’s Homestead

In 1636, Rev. Thomas Hooker led his flock of 100 settlers from Cambridge, Massachusetts to the site of Hartford on the Connecticut River. One of the first orders of business for a new settlement was to establish the boundaries of the various home lots assigned to each of the founding families. Hooker’s own lot was located on the north bank of the Little River (later called the Park River). There was a path along the river which would later be called School Street, but it was renamed Arch Street in 1834, after the construction of the arch bridge that carried Main Street across the river. [The bridge still carries Main Street across the Conlan-Whitehead Highway today]. Hooker’s dwelling house and outbuildings stood on two acres, just east of his colleague Rev. Samuel Stone’s lot.

By the mid-1830s, Thomas Hooker’s house had been demolished. In John Warner Barber’s 1836 book, Connecticut Historical Collections, he includes an illustration based on a drawing of the house, that had been created “immediately before it was taken down.” He explains that the drawing “was obtained from a gentleman now deceased, who devoted considerable time and attention to antiquarian researches in Hartford.” It depicts a two-story house of three bays with typical features of substantial frame houses the period: a central chimney, diamond-pane windows, and an overhanging second story. The house’s central bay featured a projecting section that included decorative drop pendants hanging on either side of the front entryway. The projecting area above the entrance was called the porch and Barber indicates it was used as the reverend’s study.

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According to Edward W. Hooker’s The Life of Thomas Hooker (1849), “At the taking down of the old parsonage house of the First Congregational Church in Hartford, about thirty years ago, a large quantity of ancient papers was found, supposed to be those of Rev. Thomas Hooker; and they were thrown into Connecticut river by persons employed in the work, who were either ignorant or thoughtless of their value.” After relating the same story, Cmmdr Edward Hooker, author of The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker, Hartford, Connecticut, 1586-1908 (1909) observes that, “While nothing whatever is known of the contents of these carefully preserved papers we may safely conclude that by their destruction the Colony and State of Connecticut lost much most valuable historical data relating to its early history.”

Years before the house was taken down, the area had witnessed significant changes. Prospect Street was laid out in 1788 just west of Hooker’s former property. It intersected with School (later renamed Arch) Street. In the early nineteenth century, the Little River was known as the Mill River because of the growth of industry along its banks. Right across from the old Hooker lot was a dam. As William DeLoss Love described the area of that dam in his book, The Colonial History of Hartford (1914):

Here, in 1779, Thomas Seymour asked liberty to build a grist and saw-mill. It was opposite his homestead. He received, in 1787, the usual lease of the premises. The grist-mill was on the north, and the saw-mill on the south side of the riveret. Both continued for many years. In 1824, Ward's Woolen Manufactory occupied the former site. Little did Thomas Hooker imagine such a building across the street from his dooryard.

The Phoenix Iron Works

By the mid nineteenth century, the vicinity where Hooker’s house had stood had become industrialized, although nearby Prospect Street was still lined with elegant homes that had been built decades earlier. At least part of Hooker’s old property, as well as the former site of Ward’s Woolen Manufactory, on the opposite side of Arch Street, were now occupied by George S. Lincoln & Co.’s Phoenix Iron Works. As related in the 1889 book, Hartford, Conn., as a Manufacturing, Business and Commercial Center, the origins of this factory went back to the 1832, when Levi Lincoln

was agent and manager of the New England Card Company, which had a shop on Ann Street. At one time the concern had on its books the names of nine hundred women and children scattered about the country who were employed at odd hours in setting the wire teeth of the cards used in the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods and for other purposes. Mr. Lincoln either invented or greatly improved a machine for punching the holes in the leather, and for making and inserting the teeth by a continuous process. The contrivance put an end to the domestic industry. It was operated at first by dog-power.

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Lincoln, who started his own operation in 1834, went on to patent other inventions: the molasses gate (a cast iron faucet for molasses barrels) and a machine that made hook and eye fasteners. He also experimented in electroplating with William Rogers, which developed into Rogers Brothers’ silverware manufacturing business. In 1841, Levi’s business was taken over by his sons, George and Charles, under the firm name George S. Lincoln and Company. As the 1889 book, quoted above, mentions, “In a short time they were doing a large business in the production of lathes, pulleys, shaftings, and small tools.” The firm played a role in Hartford’s rise as a center of precision manufacturing: many of the industrial operations that were rising throughout Connecticut at the time, such as Cheney Brother Silk in Manchester, turned to Geo. S. Lincoln & Co. for machinery. Francis A. Pratt, who would go on to found Pratt & Whitney, was superintendent of the Phoenix Iron Works from 1854 until 1861. The 1889 book noted the progress of the business by that time:

The foundry continued to grow in relative importance, and for the last twelve or fifteen years has been the leading feature of the business. The firm makes a specialty of architectural iron work, including columns, fronts, lintels, girders, vault and jail-doors, shutters, gratings, balconies, fences, window-guards, fire-escapes, fountains, vases, lawn seats, hydrants, etc. They do a large business also in machinists' tools, lathes, planers, upright drills, etc., and in shafting, pulleys, and gearing. The substantial and elegant work produced here can be seen in the State Capitol, in the buildings of Trinity College, the Connecticut Mutual Life, the Etna Life, and in hundreds of other widely scattered structures. The premises extend from 54 to 70 Arch Street. They employ 150 hands and pay over $70,000 a year in wages. The present company consists of Charles L. Lincoln, with his two sons, Charles P. and Theodore M.

The business was reorganized in 1901 under the name Phoenix Iron Works Corporation by a group of investors that included Charles Lincoln Taylor, a great grandson of Levi Lincoln. In 1907, it merged with the Fenn Machine Company to form the Taylor & Fenn. Co. This merger led to a burst of new construction that expanded the plant with an addition to the rear and a new long facade that took the place of three distinct wings that faced Arch Street. The iron works’ plant was described in the Hartford Courant on October 6, 1908:

It has been very successful despite the fact that it lacks a desirable location not being on a railway line, where it can have its own sidings. The buildings are of brick and include a three-story factory building 25 by 50 feet, a foundry covering 14,100 square feet and a machine shop 30 by 110 feet, with an addition 150 by 40.

Taylor & Fenn prospered at Arch Street for the next half-century, until it relocated to the town of Windsor in 1961. The company still operates there today. The factory buildings in Hartford were soon removed, but the property is now occupied by buildings erected for UCONN’s Hartford campus, which also uses the old Hartford Times Building. It is fascinating that this particular spot is associated with three such essential aspects of Hartford’s history: the very location where the city’s founder had his home later became the site of an essential component of Hartford’s great age as a center of precision manufacturing, and it’s now part of the university campus that is a focus of downtown revitalization efforts.

I’m still working on a video about Prospect Street in Hartford, which will now be two videos: one about the west side and one about the north side. Prospect followed a pattern where it started as a street of grand homes built by some of the city’s wealthiest residents around the start of the nineteenth century. Later in the century, the wealthy had moved on, and the houses came to be used by various cultural institutions and organizations, including social clubs. Finally, in the twentieth century, the houses were replaced by larger institutional buildings. On the west side of the street, these were the three large complexes, extending towards Main Street, of Travelers Insurance, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the Hartford Municipal Building.

One of the houses that was eventually lost to the building of Travelers Tower was located at 47 Prospect Street. It was a classic 3-bay Italianate-style cube with an elaborate projecting doorframe. When Travelers purchased the house from Daniel R. Howe in 1914, the Hartford Courant gave the following historical account of the building:

The Howe place, it is said, was built about 1858 by Joseph Trumbull, at one time governor of Connecticut, for Lucius F. Robinson, a brother of Hon. Henry C. Robinson, and uncle of Luclus F. and John T. Robinson of the law firm of Robinson & Robinson, and Henry S. Robinson, vice-president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. The Robinsons sold the place to the late Senator Francis B. Cooley and he sold it to Edmund G. Howe, father of the man who has sold it to the Travelers, Daniel R. Howe, has owned the place since about 1895, after the death of his mother. It is understood that the Travelers Insurance Company has bought the place to use for an addition to its office building when expansion again becomes necessary.1

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Going back to 1895, the year his mother (it may have been his stepmother) died, Howe rented the house to a newly formed social club called the Colonial Club. The Courant reported on the club’s organizational meeting, during which Edward M. Bunce, secretary of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, was chosen its first president. The club’s name was also selected:

Dr. Judson reported for the preliminary committee that 98 votes had been received on the name for the club. “Sequassen" led with 39[.] After some discussion the meeting took a ballot and "Colonial” had it by a large majority. The club has now 140 members, and it is expected that the new club house will be ready for occupancy in about ten days.2

The Colonial Club had grown out of the Bachelors Club, a group of young men who hosted a number of dinners each winter. A few months after the Colonial Club moved into the new clubhouse, smoke from a fire did not disrupt a late dinner service:

A still alarm was sent in to No. 1 Hose Company from the Colonial Club on Prospect street late last night. The floor in the main hall under a stairway was burning, the fire catching from a wooden hot air pipe connected with the furnace. The wood smouldered [sic] during the afternoon and it was supposed that wood was being burned in the furnace. The hall rapidly filled with smoke last night and it was some time before the fire was located. A portion of the floor was torn up and when the fire was found the firemen soon put it out with an extinguisher. Little damage was done and an order of some late guests for Welsh rabbits was not interfered with.3

In February 1898, the club chose as its new president Francis R. Cooley (the son of Francis B. Cooley, who had once owned the house according to the article quoted near the start of this article). Francis R. Cooley (Yale 1886), one of the original organizers of the club, was described as “one of the most popular of the young men in the city.”4 Later that year the club hired architect William R. Brocklesby to make extensive alterations to the house, which was also outfitted with new specially made furniture. As described in the Courant:

The changes will include a large club dining room, lounging room, Ladies' dining room and reception room. The roof of the main building is to be raised and fine accommodation provided for four or five billiard tables. A new addition, two stories high, will be built in the rear and the L extended and ample provision made for kitchen, servant's dining room, cook's pantry, store room, etc. A new coat room and toilet on main floor will be arranged. The interior throughout is to be altered to suit the needs of the club. The walls and ceilings are to be decorated under direction of the architect and many changes made for the future comfort of the club.5

The club was not long to remain in its remodeled home. In 1901 the Colonial Club merged with the Hartford Club, located nearby on Prospect Street, and vacated the Howe House. The unexpired portion of the lease was taken up by another new club, organized by some of the city’s leading Jewish citizens, including many prominent merchants, such as department store owner Isidore Wise, milliners Raphael Ballerstein and Moses Blumenthal, and the club’s first president, hatter William B. Rothschild. It was named the Touro Club in honor of the famous Jewish American philanthropist Judah Touro of Newport, Rhode Island. The club had weekly entertainments, such as the 1905 performance of the original musical comedy The Wonderful Dr. Slick, with lyrics by Davis Kempner, libretto by Milton Bacharach, and music by Samuel J. Leventhal. According to a review the Courant:

David Kempner, who acted the part of Charles Van Doozan threw the audience into high merriment by his song, "Members of the Touro Club," This song contains some well aimed hits at such well known members of the club as Moses Blumenthal and Isidore Wise.6

The Touro Club relocated when Travelers purchased the house in 1914, first to the Strand Building on Main Street, and then again in 1919, to 553 Farmington Avenue. The club seems not to have continued to exist past 1922, but in that same year some of its members started a new venture. In an era when Jews were faced restrictions at area country clubs, these Touro Club members purchased the R. G. Miller farm in Bloomfield and hired noted golf course architect Willie Park, Jr. to design its first 9-hole course of what is now the Tumble Brook Country Club.

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Returning to the house on Prospect Street, Travelers initially used it for storage, but in September 1915 the fully furnished house was presented to the Travelers Club, a social organization for its employees that had been started in 1907. Although it was opened with much fanfare, the club was evicted a little over a year later. The house was to be demolished to make way for the south extension of the Travelers Building. In addition to the club’s belongings, which had to be removed,

A part of the building has also been used as a retreat for old records of the company. In fact, there have been so many old records stored there that in weight they have amounted to tons. These are also being removed from the clubhouse.7

That south extension of the Travelers Building was none other than the famous 527-foot high tower section, designed by Donn Barber and completed in 1919. So, the next time you glance at Travelers Tower rising above downtown, recall that it was built on the site of an old house that was at one time home to some of the city’s prominent citizens of old, and also housed clubs wherein Hartford’s young bachelors, prominent Jewish leaders, and Travelers employees were entertained and socialized for twenty years.

A story from today’s Hartford Courant (May 17, 2025) by Ken Gosselin headlined “$150M plan seeks to redevelop aging CT cineplex into 300+ apartments, entertainment venue,” describes future plans for a 13-acre property at 330 New Park Avenue. The redevelopment would renovate a currently closed movie plex on the site into a new restaurant and entertainment venue, construct new apartments where there are now parking lots, and erect a self-storage facility to the rear. Longtime area residents may recall that thirty years ago a very different complex, consisting of twenty buildings, stood on this site, a narrow strip sandwiched between New Park and the CT Fastrack busway. This was the distillery of Heublein, Inc., the Hartford-based liquor and food company. If you have watched my video about the Heubleins, or attended my recent in-person talk about their company and the building of the famous Heublein Tower (I’ll be doing another presentation on the Heubleins at the Windsor Senior Center on September 9, 2026), you will recall that German immigrant Andrew Heublein opened a cafe on Mulberry Street in Hartford in 1859. Andrew’s son Gilbert F. Heublein expanded the original business into a nationally known producer and distributor of liquor, notable for their bottled “club cocktails.” In 1939, the company acquired the rights to Smirnoff Vodka and was involved in inventing the Moscow Mule cocktail to help market it. Heublein also produced food products, such aa A.1. Steak Sauce.

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The New Park Avenue facility was the company’s fourth home in Hartford. The original Heublein bottling facility opened on Gold Street in 1876, the year after Andrew Heublein had relinquished the business to his sons, Gilbert and Louis. Twenty years later, the need for more space led to the move into a new building on Trumbull Street, constructed in 1896 (it still exists today). At some point the company also started utilizing a plant on Portland Street, where A.1. sauce was produced (Portland Street, north of downtown, was lost to early 1960s redevelopment). With the end of Prohibition, demand for liquor products necessitated a move to a larger facility on Broad Street (a building later occupied for many years by the Hartford Courant). But within a few years of moving to Broad, increasing growth led Heublein to seek an even larger plant. The company chose a factory building on New Park Avenue that had been erected back in 1916.

It Started with Ball Bearings

In a way, the history of the development of 330 New Park Avenue goes all the way back to Gothenburg, Sweden in 1907, when Sven Wingquist patented his new invention, a revolutionary multi-row self-aligning radial ball bearing. SKF, the company that began production of Wingquist’s ball bearing device in Sweden, soon opened a sales office in New York. But the difficulties of reliably supplying its American customers led to the decision to open a factory in the United States. The company built its Hartford factory in 1916 on an 8-acre site, south of the Royal Typewriter factory and adjacent to the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad tracks (now CT Fastrack). Asked by a Courant reporter why Hartford had been chosen in preference to several other cities, including Bridgeport, a representative of the company replied it was “because of the large number of skilled mechanics which live in this city, [. . .] known so widely for its products and its industries.” According to the same article:

The new factory represents the latest that is to be found in modern construction of heavy buildings of this type and the interior has been planned so as to arrange for the most economical and efficient handling of the various processes through which the finished ball bearing must go from the time that it is broken up us crude material in the receiving department of the factory which is located close to the "New Haven" road tracks from where a siding runs up to the factory. Special care has been taken in the designing of the interior of the building where the automatic processes such as the grinding and turning of the bearing is done so that time may be saved and confusion lessened as much as possible.1

Wingquist, the Swedish company’s inventor and president, visited the Hartford factory on September 23, 1916. He expressed himself pleased with the start made but indicated that large additions would soon be necessary to increase capacity. According to a contemporary report:

When the party had finished their inspection of the factory Mr. Winquist posted a notice stating that in appreciation of the excellent work done by the Hartford factory during the past few months Saturday September 30 would be a holiday with full pay.2

Growth of Heublein

To consolidate its operations in the wake of the Great Depression, SKF moved its Hartford operations to Philadelphia in 1933. While that was a difficult year for many companies, things looked much brighter for Heublein because Prohibition finally came to an end. Having survived in the interim due to the success of A.1. Steak Sauce, the company now experienced a period of rapid growth which would bring it first to Broad Street and then to New Park Avenue. In 1937 the company, now led by Gilbert F. Heublein’s grandson, John G. Martin, hired architect Carl J. Malmfeldt to make needed alterations and additions to the already existing factory buildings. Henri Van Zelm, a Hartford engineer, was placed in charge of mechanical engineering work. Changes included new partitions, added to divide the plant into more convenient rooms, and a second-floor addition built to house the distilling and mixing apparatus. Much storage space would be added over time to accommodate the many bottles the business required. Along with seven massive stills, the equipment transferred to the new factory included an older 200-gallon pot still, in which the Heubleins had first distilled their Milshire gin at the start of the twentieth century. Almost four decades later it was still in use to reclaim alcohol from the residue left in the other stills.3 Among the new products the plant would soon produce was Smirnoff Vodka, acquired by Heublein in 1939.

There would be numerous additions to the complex over the years. The most significant was likely the erection in 1947-8 of what the c. 1950 Sanborn Insurance Atlas labels the “A.1. Sauce Building.” Even after the move to New Park, the sauce was still being made at Portland Street, but in 1948 Heublein announced its New Food Products Building in an advertisement which declared that, in addition to A.1., “Additional quality food specialties now being developed will soon be manufactured in this ultra-modern plant.”

Unfortunately, the opening of the new plant was marred by a fatal workplace accident. John R. Clegg and another employee collapsed as they neared the bottom of a 12-foot malt vinegar storage vat they were cleaning. They had sprayed the inside with a hose and were then overcome by the heavy fumes produced by the mixture of sediment and water. Clegg passed away. His coworker was sent to the hospital along with three other employees and a fire fighter who had all been overcome by the fumes as they attempted to rescue the stricken men.4

The End of an Era

The Heublein complex on New Park Avenue was Heublein Inc.’s sole production facility until 1957 and it continued in operation until 1995. By then, the company was no longer a family-run operation. In 1982 it was sold to R. J. Reynolds and in 1987 RJR Nabisco sold the division to Grand Metropolitan. By the mid-1990s company leaders decided to sell one of its three liquor plants. The ones in Michigan and California survived but the Hartford plant was closed. This was not however the final end for Heublein in Hartford, as the division’s corporate offices, located for some time in Farmington, were brought back to the city. Unable to sell the 13-acre property at 330 New Park Avenue, the company demolished all of the buildings in 1997.5 The only structure to survive was the adjacent building at 430 New Park Avenue, which Heublein had built in 1986 for research and development. It remained in operation, but within a year, following further mergers, the Heublein name was finally retired completely. This brought to an end the distillery business that went back to 1875, when the Heublein brothers took over their father’s cafe and hotel.

At the start of the 2000s, the building at 430 New Park Avenue was acquired by Ken Crowley for a Chevrolet dealership and has since become a coworking space. As we know, the large complex at No. 330 became a cineplex and is now slated for further redevelopment. With a bar and restaurant slated to be one of the new uses for the site, former Heublein products like A.1. Steak Sauce and Smirnoff Vodka may return to the old stretch of New Park where they were once manufactured for decades in Hartford, Connecticut.

I’m currently working on a video about Prospect Street in downtown Hartford, which was once lined with the houses of some of the city’s most prominent citizens. I can’t always fit every detail from my research in my videos, so I want to share here in Substack articles some additional information about the houses and anecdotes about their owners. One of these old Hartford notables was Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, whose house stood where the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company later built its art deco style headquarters building in 1932. The family was very accomplished: Henry’s father Oliver, whose homestead in the town of Windsor is now a museum operated by the D.A.R., is numbered among the Founding Fathers and was the third Chief Justice of the United States. Henry’s twin brother William was a U.S. congressman, served on the state Supreme Court, and was Governor of Connecticut. As for Henry himself, his achievements included serving as mayor of Hartford and becoming the first commissioner of the United States Patent Office. He also contributed to the development of downtown Hartford in the 1820s by erecting a number of buildings (sadly none of which survive today). These included at least three commercial blocks, the old Hartford Town Hall on Market Street, and his own residence on Prospect Street.

Prospect Street was laid out by the city in 1788. At that time, land on the east side of Prospect, at the corner of what would become Grove Street, was acquired by Oliver Wolcott, Jr., (also the son of a Founding Father). In 1792, Wolcott sold the property to Chauncey Goodrich. Thirty years later, Goodrich’s son, also named Chauncey, sold it to Ellsworth, who had been his classmate at Yale. Ellsworth then erected a gable-front federal-style house with a Palladian tripartite window and a rooftop cupola. Ellsworth had married Goodrich’s sister Nancy in 1813. Their daughter Annie, who was born in the house in 1826, would later make a notable contribution to the history of long-distance communication. As Patent Commissioner in Washington, Henry Ellsworth encouraged the work of inventors like Samuel F.B. Morse. In 1843, Morse received funding from Congress to set up the nation’s first long-distance telegraph line. When Morse officially opened the new line in front of a small group of guests at the U. S. Capitol on May 24, 1844, Annie chose the text of the very first message, a Biblical passage suggested by her mother: “What hath God wrought.”

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On November 30, 1876, the Hartford Courant reprinted a piece on the history of the house from the Travelers Record which included details about its later occupants:

In 1839 the place was bought by Charles Davies, professor of mathematics at West Point, and the author of several well-known mathematical works. He was succeeded in 1841 by Roswell C. Smith, also a prolific maker of school-books. Alfred C. Smith, a sound and able though not brilliant lawyer, occupied the bouse from 18[??] to 1868. It was then for one year the residence of Hon. Isaac Toucey, who had been governor and United States senator for Connecticut, and secretary of the navy under President Buchanan.

In a later Courant article, printed on August 12, 1907, the paper shared recollections about the house from two longtime city residents, Gurdon W. Russell and George E. Hoadley. Russell remembered that after the lawyer Smith passed away, his housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffrey, conducted a boarding house for a time before Isaac Toucey moved in. Hoadley shared the following anecdote:

Alfred and Erastus Smith were contemporaries here. Somebody met a Hartford man and asked him if he knew a Mr. Smith in this city. "Two of 'em," said the Hartford man. “Well, my man's a lawyer," said the stranger." "Both of them are," said the Hartford man. “But my man's lame,” said the inquirer." They both are, said Mr. Hartford. “My friend's a bit careless about his personal appearance,” said the man from out of town. "Can't tell from that," said the resident. And the joke of it is that one of the Smiths used to tell the story himself.

Returning to the house’s original owner, Henry L. Ellsworth, Russell shared a story that reflects the intense political rivalries of the time:

Henry L. Ellsworth had formerly been a member of the Federal party, but, like many other good Federalists, Dr. Russell said, Mr. Ellsworth became a democrat. Dr. Russell said that he remembered being in the "Times" office one day, probably about 1827. Austin Terry was there at a case sticking type and Mr. Terry said to him: "Hush, Gurdon." Mr. Ellsworth was in the little room, used as an editorial room, with Dr. Russell's father, Gideon Welles and others and they were discussing politics. In a loud tone of voice that could be heard all over the room Ellsworth said “Sooner than vote for John Quincy Adams, I will cut off my right hand." Mr. Russell said that this statement was so interesting to Mr. Terry that the latter wanted him to remain quiet so that he could hear some more "good news."

After the death of Isaac Toucey’s widow, Travelers Insurance purchased the building in 1872. In the ensuing years the company would greatly expand the house almost beyond recognition. In 1907, Travelers moved to Main Street and sold the building to Hartford Steam Boiler, which finally demolished it in 1931 and replaced it with the current building on the site.

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My latest in-person presentation will be at the South Windsor Senior Center at 10:00 AM on Thursday, April 23. I’ll talk about the Heublein family, their successful liquor and food business and various buildings associated with them, including the famous Heublein Tower on Talcott Mountain!

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Please come to my next IN PERSON presentation about the Cheney Mansions of Manchester, Connecticut at the South Windsor CT Senior Center, 1:00 PM, Friday, March 27!