A Mysterious Disappearance in 1876

C. 1890 photo o Hartford's old Pearl Street Fire Station.

The image above shows the long gone 19th-century fire house on Pearl Street in Hartford. Behind it is the old fire bell tower. In recent Substack articles, I’ve written about the fire bell and also about Hartford’s fire chief, Henry J. Eaton. and his white horse, who are most likely the ones on the left in this photo. My latest Substack (You can click on the image for the link!) is about a mysterious incident in 1876 when Chief Eaton suddenly disappeared for nearly two weeks. When he was finally tracked down by police in Brooklyn he initially denied his identity but was soon escorted back to Hartford where he was reinstated a half hour later and served as chief for another 27 years! What could have been the meaning of all this?

Chief Eaton at Main and Pleasant

A white horse pulling a buggy driven by Fire Chief Henry J. Eaton of Hartford past a commercial building during a parade with spectators lining the street.

This is a rare surviving image of the building at 1242 Main Street, at the corner of Pleasant Street, where the southwest corner of Dunkin Park is today. The photo was likely taken on April 5, 1901, during the parade that celebrated Hartford Fire Chief Henry J. Eaton’s 50 years with the department. Read my latest Substack post to learn about Chief Eaton, his familiar white horse and the 1897 moving picture they were in that survives today and once made William Gillette cheer.

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Thomas B. Chapman House (1895)

The Post-Chapman House, a two-story Colonial Revival-style residence that the Hartford Courant described in 1895 as painted yellow with white trim and is still painted those colors today.

The house at 706 Prospect Avenue in Hartford was built in 1895 for businessman Thomas B. Chapman (1859-1904), a grandson of Episcopal Bishop Thomas Church Brownell. As the Hartford Courant reported on July 24, 1895: “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.” Chapman initially rented the house to his father-in-law, William H. Post (1833-1899), a prominent Hartford merchant who sold carpets, curtains, and wallpaper. Post passed away in 1899 and Chapman was living in the house at the time of his own death in 1904. His widow, Helen Post Chapman (1860-1941), continued to reside in the house into the 1920s. Her memoir, My Hartford in the Nineteenth Century, was published in 1928. To learn more about the house and about a dramatic explosion in 1919 that destroyed its kitchen, read my Substack article: https://oldhartford.substack.com/p/when-an-explosion-destroyed-a-hartford?r=4j8x6h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

The Lost Holcombe House in Hartford

1930s photo of the Holcombe House, which stood at 79 Spring Street in Hartford from 1815 until c. 1950. (Photograph courtesy of the Connecticut State Library, RG 033:28, WPA Records, Architectural Survey: Hartford historic building 010).

The Holcombe House once stood at 79 Spring Street in Hartford. Built in 1815 by George J. Patten, it was acquired by James H. Holcombe, a prominent lawyer, in 1840. It was owned by the Holcombe family for the next 110 years, including John M. Holcombe, of the Phoenix Life Insurance Company, and his wife, Emily Seymour Goodwin Holcombe, who played a major role in the preservation of such historic landmarks as Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground and the Old State House. Their son Harold G. Holcombe, sold the house in 1950 and it was taken down for a parking lot. You can learn much more about the house in my latest Substack post.

A Mansion Once Threatened by Blackmailers!

Image of a three-story Italianate-style house being used as a restaurant.

My latest Substack post is about a lost mid-1800s Hartford mansion (shown above in a detail from a 1967 advert when it was the Casa Bianca Restaurant) that had an amazingly varied history. In 1917, it was the home of a woman who, just days after her husband died, was threatened with death by a gang of blackmailers. Later serving as a private hospital and a clubhouse, it was then home to a series of restaurants from 1941 into the 1970s.

Smokin’ in the Courthouse

The Hartford County Courthouse building, a three-story French Renaissance-style building (shown in an old postcard above), was designed by architect John C. Mead and stood at the corner of Trumbull and Allyn Streets in Hartford from 1885 until 1930. This is where the Peoples Bank Arena is located today. My latest Substack post contains anecdotes from 1912 about the lawyers hanging out in a dark room of the courthouse where they traded stories and lost track of their cigar butts.