Author: Daniel

John Pierpont Morgan, the famous banker of the Gilded Age, was born in Hartford, Connecticut. His grandfather, Joseph Morgan, had arrived in Hartford in 1816 and had success as the owner of the popular Exchange Coffee House. Joseph’s son, Junius Spencer Morgan, was a partner in a Hartford dry goods business before he left to become a prominent banker in London. J. Pierpont Morgan was born in his grandfather’s house on Asylum Street in 1837 and his childhood home was on Farmington Avenue. His Hartford cousins were the prominent Goodwin brothers. J. S. and J. P. Morgan were generous benefactors of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. They are buried in the city’s Cedar Hill Cemetery.

This video is about the branches in downtown Hartford of four major variety stores: F. W. Woolworth Co., W. T. Grant Co., J. J. Newberry Co., and S. S. Kresge Co.

This video is about a section of Main Street in Hartford that was depicted in a 1774 map showing several buildings that existed there at the time. In the video I talk about the people who occupied these structures, including a pastor who was dismissed for drunkenness, an indebted surgeon and apothecary who sold enslaved people, and a young widow who took the Connecticut Courant newspaper.