I’ve made a compilation of my videos about the history of Pearl Street in Hartford, which had great architecture and was called Hartford’s “Wall Street!” Its now lost buildings included banks and insurance companies, an early design by H. H. Richardson, the location of the city’s old fire bell, the telephone exchange (home of the “Hello Girls”), Plimpton’s, the Halls of Record, and much more! Check it out!
In my latest Substack post, I consider where the House of Hope, the fort constructed by the Dutch in 1633, was located in Hartford. I’ve circled in red the location of the Dutch House of Hope in the map above that depicts Hartford in 1636 in William DeLoss Love’s 1914 book The Colonial History of Hartford.
My latest video continues to reveal the forgotten history of Prospect Street in Hartford. Focusing on the east side of the street, I show houses where fascinating people lived, including notable lawyers, judges, authors, and business innovators. The houses were replaced by ornate buildings that housed important social clubs, organizations, and the home of the Hartford Times.
My latest video is about the west side of Prospect Street in Hartford (between Central Row and Atheneum Street) where a row of historic houses came to be replaced by the expansion of Travelers in the twentieth century. Some of these houses were the residences of prominent figures like the original publisher of the Hartford Courant, the founder of one of Hartford’s oldest law firms, the man who inspired a historic library and museum in a small Connecticut Town, and more! Also, the stable where George Washington kept his horse in 1780! The houses later became the homes of several important social clubs!
The lost homestead of Rev. Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford, once stood on Arch Street (pictured above in an illustration from John Warner Barber’s Connecticut Historical Collections, published in 1836, by which time the house was already demolished). The property was later the site of the Phoenix Iron Works, which played a vital role in the city’s rise to be a center of precision manufacturing. Read about this fascinating story in my latest Substack post.
My latest Substack post is about a historic house that stood right on the site of Travelers Tower in Hartford. It went from being a private home in the nineteenth century to serving as the home of social clubs for two decades before it was torn down. The clubs were: The Colonial Club (which was there from when it was organized in 1895 until it merged with the Hartford Club in 1901), the Touro Club (a Jewish club that was there from 1901 until Travelers Insurance bought the house in 1914), and a brief tenure of the Travelers Club (1915-1916) before the house was torn down.
My latest Substack post is about a factory complex in Hartford that grew from 1916 until it was finally demolished in 1997. Originally built by a Swedish company to make ball bearings, it was later greatly expanded by G. F. Heublein & Bro., the famous liquor and food company that brought Smirnoff Vodka and A.1. Steak Sauce to America. A cineplex built on the site recently closed and the property is again slated for redevelopment.
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