New Video: The Dramatic Demolition of the Pearl Street Congregational Church Spire

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My latest video is a little longer than usual and in more of a narrative podcast style with lengthy quotes from newspapers of the time.

On August 26, 1899, the upper portion of the steeple (including the heavy capstone) of the Pearl Street Congregational Church in Hartford was brought to earth safely through the efforts of contractor William F. O’Neil. This feat of engineering, which was witnessed by a crowd of thousands and was captured in a photograph, was the culmination of weeks of planning, preparation and public scrutiny. The ongoing work of church demolition, and speculation about how the steeple would finally be brought down, attracted the attention of passers-by, who marveled at the dangerous work of steeple-climber John Kiffe. The ongoing work also sparked a number of reminiscences about the building and the colorful personalities associated with it from a number of long-time Hartford residents. Utilizing contemporary accounts from the Hartford Courant and the Hartford Times newspapers, this video brings to life those days in August of 1899 when a Hartford landmark was reduced to rubble. It shows how a complicated problem of engineering was solved and reminds us of the fascinating personalities that inhabited the city over 200 years ago.

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New Video: History of Hartford’s Ann Uccello Street before Construction of the Civic Center

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This video is about what Ann Uccello Street in Hartford was like before the Civic Center was built. It covers the section between Asylum Street and the highway. On the west side, the Morse School building, the Russian Lady building, the former Masonic Temple, the old Hartford Wire Works building (now home to Agave and Aladdin restaurants) and St. Patrick – St. Anthony Church survive, but the old Foster/Weldon Block and St. Patrick – St. Anthony School are lost. On the east side of Ann Street, where the Civic Center stands today, there were once many old buildings, including Engine Company No. 4, home of the “Pride of Hartford,” and a Y.W.C.A. building. Just to the north was the lost Hotel Hartford.

Canton Center General Store (1830)

The building at 180 Cherry Brook Road in Canton Center originally stood on the bank of Cherry Brook where it was built in 1830 by Norman Case as a woodworking shop. A flood in 1870 destroyed the stone dam on which this and other manufacturing operations in the vicinity depended. In 1874, Giles Sisson converted the carpenter shop’s upper floor into a social hall. The following year, brothers Austin and Myron Skinner of Middletown were persuaded by Rev. D. B. Hubbard of Canton Center’s Congregational Church to open a general store on the ground floor. The store has had many owners over the last century and a half. In 1886, while it was owned by George Lamphier, Sr., the store was moved east from Cherry Brook to its current location along Cherry Brook Road.

Capt. John Brown House (1776)

The house at 37 West Road in Canton was built in 1776 by Capt. John Brown III (1728-1776) to replace his earlier log cabin that stood west of the current house. As related in the 1860 book The Public Life of Capt. John Brown, by James Redpath:

John Brown, the third, at the outbreak of the revolutionary war, was chosen Captain of the West Simsbury (now Canton) trainband; and, in the spring of 1776, joined forces of the continental army at New York. His commission from Governor Trumbull is dated May 23, 1776. After a service of two months’ duration, he fell a victim to the prevailing epidemic of the camp, at the age of 48 years. He died in a barn, attended only by a faithful subordinate, a few miles north of New York City, where the continental army was at that time encamped. His body was buried on the Highlands, near the western bank of the East River.

Capt. Brown’s youngest son Abiel, who continued to live in the house until his death in 1856, wrote the book Genealogical History, with Short Sketches and Family Records, of the Early Settlers of West Simsbury, now Canton, Conn. (1856). Abiel’s brother Owen moved to Torrington and was the father of abolitionist John Brown. The younger John Brown later moved a monument to his grandfather, that once stood in the lot across the street from the house across from the house in Canton, to his farm in North Elba, New York. Brown was executed in 1859 and he was buried on his New York farm where his grave is marked by the same stone.

The house in Canton has a modern ell, shown on the right in the image above.