A brief video about my visit to the Connecticut Trolley Museum last month.
New Video: Connecticut Trolley Museum
New Video: Vanished Asylum Street, Hartford, CT
This is the last video in my series on the stretch of Asylum Street between Main and Trumbull Streets in Hartford, Connecticut. This section of the parking lot on the north side of Asylum Street, just west of Main Street and the lost Hartford-Aetna Building, was once home to businesses such as the Freeman-Church clothing store, Greenspon’s Hardware store, Huntsinger’s Business College, and various business enterprises operated by Eli Pakulski, including the Wooster billiards, bowling and cafe and the Wooster lunchroom and Wooster Lunch Annex.
New Video: Hartford’s Isle of Safety
This video is about the Isle of Safety, which sheltered trolley (and later bus) passengers in Downtown Hartford, Connecticut from 1913 to 1976. It is now at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, Connecticut.
Ira Eaton House (1810)
The house at 12 Maple Street in Kent was built c.1810 for Ira Eaton (born 1786) and his wife Lucinda (born 1790). Ira was a farmer who represented Kent in the state legislature in 1833. The house was enlarged around the time of the marriage of Ira and Lucinda’s son, Luther. His life is described in the History of Kent, Connecticut (1897), by Francis Atwater:
(more…)Luther Eaton, a son of Ira Eaton, was born in Kent January 4, 1826. He was educated in the public schools of the town and J. C. Howard academy in Warren, Conn. On March 26, 1850, he married Miss Sophronia E. Tobey, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., his present wife. From his youth up Mr. Eaton has been a farmer and still has something to do in overseeing his farms, and for thirty years he has been a packer and dealer in Connecticut leaf tobacco. In politics has always been a strong Democrat, both for sound money and protection, what has been fitly called a Samuel J. Randall Democrat. Mr. Eaton has always been one of the public men of Kent, and has held nearly every town office, besides representing the town in the Legislature in 1865, and with others had very much to do in 1881 in forming the Kent Water company, which succeeded in furnishing the village with an abundance of good water. Mr. Eaton has been president of the Water company since 1882, and there has been no public enterprise started in the town of Kent but what Mr. Eaton has done his full share in both paying out money and in seeing to it that it was done as it should be. The family of Eatons came to Kent about 1757 from the town of Tolland, Tolland county, Connecticut.
Old Stone Church, New Preston (1824)
The Old Stone Church, also known as the Hill Church and the Stone Meetinghouse, is located adjacent to the New Preston Hill Green in the town of Washington. The successor to two earlier church buildings, erected in 1754 and 1766, that no longer survive, the Stone Church was built in 1824 by the Ecclesiastical Society of New Preston. It was at the heart of a rural community that included two other stone notable buildings: a tavern, built in 1800 across the street, and a schoolhouse, built in 1850 behind the church. In 1853 the congregation built a new church at New Preston Center, which was developing as an industrial center. The New Preston Hill area has maintained its rural character and the Old Stone Church, which lacks modern heating, continued to be used during the summer months.
(more…)Daniel Phelps House (1808)
Capt. Jeremiah Goodrich House (1740)
589 Main Street in Portland was the site of the c. 1720 house of Thomas White. It seems to have been replaced c. 1740 by a house constructed for Jeremiah Goodrich (1709-1793), who was part of Portland’s shipbuilding industry and active in town affairs. The house was originally a single-chimney residence that was later enlarged to have two chimneys. It was later owned by his son Hezekiah Goodrich (1745-1817). Hezekiah was a Jeffersonian Republican who was one of five men removed from office as Justice of the Peace in by the Federalist state government due to his attendance at an August 29, 1804 general meeting of Republican delegates from 97 Connecticut towns held in New Haven. At the time Connecticut was still operating under the 1662 Royal Charter, but the delegates favored the drafting of a constitution, declaring it “the unanimous opinion of this meeting that the people of this state are at present without a constitution of civil government.” Federalists were outraged at what they considered a radical and dangerous position, and they succeeded in revoking Goodrich’s commission, as described in Historical Notes on the Constitutions of Connecticut, 1639-1818 (1901) by J. Hammond Trumbull:
The result of the October election in an increased federal majority showed that the popular mind was not yet prepared for a radical change. When the General Assembly met, the leaders of the dominant party, elated by success, resolved to administer a signal rebuke to the revolutionary designs of the minority. Five justices of the peace, who had attended the republican meeting at New Haven and taken part in its proceedings, were cited to appear before the Assembly, “to shew reasons why their commissions should not be revoked,” since “it is improper,” as the preamble of the resolution sets forth, “to entrust the administration of the laws to persons who hold and teach that the government is an usurpation.”
Connecticut would finally hold a constitutional convention in 1818.
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