A. J. Muzzy House (1880)

The house at 47 Prospect Place in Bristol was built c. 1880 for A.J Muzzy, an active businessman and politician who, explains his biography in Taylor’s Souvenir of the Capitol (1899), was “popularly known as the ‘Bristol hustler.'” As related in this same biography:

Hon. Adrian J. Muzzy of Bristol, republican senator from the Fourth district, is a highly honored native and merchant of Bristol, and was born January 24, 1851. He received an excellent education in the public schools. At the age of nineteen he formed a copartnership under the style of W. & A. J. Muzzy and carried on a flour and feed business at the old Downs’ mill. In August of 1873, with T. F. Barbour, he opened a store for the sale of clothing and gentlemen’s furnishings, under the name of Barbour & Muzzy. In September, 1876, he sold out his interests in W. & A. J. Muzzy and Barbour & Muzzy and succeeded O. B. Ives in the dry goods business at the Riverside Avenue store. In January of 1883 he admitted his brother, F. L. Muzzy, as a partner. The firm has built up, as it highly deserves, the largest business in that section of the state. Mr. Muzzy was the chief promoter, and one of the charter members of the Bristol and Plainville Tramway Co., and is at present a director and its secretarv. He is also president of the Masonic Building Co., a member of the Masonic Chapter, Royal Arcanum, Son of the American Revolution and Country Club. On May 22, 1873, he married Florence E. Downs of Bristol. They have one child living, Adnenne F., born April 19, 1885.

In 1912, Muzzy gave the city of Bristol land for a ballpark in memory of two sons who died young. Muzzy Field opened in 1914.