Gideon Hale, Jr. House (1796)

Gilmore Manor

Two brothers, Gideon Hale Jr., and Ebenezer Hale, built the house at 1381 Main Street in Glastonbury in 1796. The house was known as “Gideon’s Temptation” because Gideon Hale, Jr. is said to have built it in a unsuccessful attempt to get a local woman to marry him. Although it was built in the late seventeenth century, the house’s current appearance reflects alterations in the Colonial Revival style made later. The house was acquired by J.H. Hale in 1911 and moved from its original location near Hale’s house at 1420 Main Street. The Gideon Hale, Jr. House is now Gilmore Manor, an assisted living facility.

Dr. J. W. Felty House (1910)

Dr. Felty House

Tomorrow is the 34th Annual Mark Twain Holiday House Tour, which features several houses in Hartford/West Hartford and the Hartford Club. One of the houses on the tour is located at 734 Prospect Avenue. A Queen Anne house, it was built in 1910 for Dr. J.W. Felty, a prominent surgeon. The Kansas City Journal of June 30, 1897 noted:

Dr. Felty Leaves Kansas.

Abilene, Kas., June 29. (Special ) Dr. J.W. Felty. vice president of the State Medical Society and of the Association of Santa Fe Surgeons, left today for Hartford, Conn., where he will locate. He has practiced in Abilene for thirteen years and is one of the best known physicians in the state

Dr. Felty‘s Hartford house was designed by Isaac Allen, Jr. and the original blueprints are now at the Connecticut Historical Society.

Mention of Dr. Felty’s work can be found in an article written by his colleague, Dr. Thomas N. Hepburn, a urologist who was the father of Katharine Hepburn, “Clinical Tests of Kidney Function” in the Yale Medical Journal of March 1912 (Vol. 18, No. 7):

Unilateral Kidney Disease. Under the heading of unilateral kidney diseases come the tubercular kidneys, the renal calculi, hydronephrosis, pyonephrosis, and pyelitis. In tests of this class of cases, ureteral catheterization, in order to compare the work of the two kidneys, is essential. It is necessary not only to make a diagnosis of the condition of the diseased kidney, but, more important still—and here is where any test that lends itself to quantitative estimation reigns supreme—it is necessary to know whether the other kidney is capable of functioning for both. A case of multiple calculi, sent me by Dr. Felty of Hartford, illustrates the point here made. From the appearance of the X-ray plate, made by Dr. Heublein, Dr. Felty was sure the kidney should be removed if possible. He wished to know how well the other kidney was functioning. With double ureteral catheterization, I found that the man excreted no phthalein from the diseased kidney, and the other kidney showed an output of 40 per cent. in one hour. Dr. Felty removed the diseased kidney, and the man made an uneventful recovery.

Dr. Felty had a second home in Florida. A notice in the Winter Park Post of September 2, 1920 states:

Dr. and Mrs. J. W. Felty with their son, Dr. A. R. Felty, of Hartford, Conn., spent three weeks here during August renovating their new home on Interlachen Avenue, purchased from Mrs, Rogers. The interior has been newly papered and other improvements added to the House and grounds. Plans are in the hands of an architect for a veranda and pergolas, which will be built when Dr. and Mrs. Felty come down in February. Dr. Felty is a distinguished surgeon of his home city and his son, who is a graduate of Yale and Johns Hopkins, is one of the house physicians in Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Felty’s daughter married a brother of Mr. Woolley, son-in-law to Mr. E. W. Brewer of this place. Dr. and Mrs. Felty greatly enjoyed their visit here and declared themselves delighted with their new property, which is in the choicest residential district of town.

As mentioned in the excerpt above, Dr. J. W. Felty’s son, Dr. A. R. Felty, was a doctor at Johns Hopkins. Felty’s syndrome, a medical condition, is named for him.

Temple Beth Torah (1824)

Temple Beth Torah

The building at 130 Main Street in Wethersfield was built as a Methodist church and is today a synagogue. The first Methodist sermon in Wethersfield was preached in 1790 by Jesse Lee in the North Brick School House, now the site of Standish Park. Wethersfield was visited by itinerant Methodist preachers until a circuit preacher for Wethersfield, Newington, New Britain, and Kensington was appointed in 1821. Early services were held at Academy Hall until the Methodist Episcopal Church was built at 130 Main Street in 1824. The church was moved 26 feet onto a new stone foundation in 1882. A fire in 1941 destroyed the church’s original Sunday school addition of 1913 and damaged the sanctuary. The church was repaired and a new Sunday school addition, twice as large, was constructed. The church soon outgrew its 1824 building and in 1959 moved to a new church at 150 Prospect Street.

The Jewish Community Group of Wethersfield was formed in 1954. The group purchased the former Methodist Church on Main Street in 1960 and adopted the name Temple Beth Torah. The building was converted to become a synagogue and the new Temple’s Day of Dedication was celebrated on May 28, 1961. Work began in 1964 to give the Temple a new facade. The former church’s steeple was removed and a new entrance in the colonial revival style was added.

Curtis H. Veeder House (1928)

CHS

The house at 1 Elizabeth Street in Hartford’s West End was built in 1928 for Curtis H. Veeder and his family. Born in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, in 1862, Veeder was an engineer who got his first patent at age eighteen. He founded the Veeder Manufacturing Company in Hartford in 1895. The company’s first product was one of Veeder’s inventions, a bicycle cyclometer. Promoted with the slogan “It’s Nice to Know How Far You Go,” the devices measured the distance a bike has traveled by counting the number of rotations made by the wheels. The company later merged with the Root Company of Bristol, Connecticut, to form Veeder-Root, which continues to produce counting and computing devices today. Veeder died in 1943 and in 1950 his widow, Louise Stutz Veeder, sold the house to the Connecticut Historical Society. Founded in 1825, the society had been based for almost a century in the Wadsworth Atheneum. CHS constructed two large additions to the Veeder House, originally designed by William F. Brooks, to house its collections and museum exhibition space.

Henry Sturges House (1834)

608 Harbor Rd., Southport

The house at 608 Harbor Road in Southport was built in the early nineteenth century (perhaps c. 1834) for Capt. Jeremiah Sturges, a shipbuilder. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1899), Sturges

also carried on a drug store and a coal yard. He owned some oceangoing ships, having nine vessels in the Mediterranean trade, besides several in the coastwise trade and in the West Indies trade. He was one of the most public spirited men of his times, and a great benefactor to humanity. He was largely instrumental in securing the building of the breakwater, himself being the contractor. Jeremiah Sturges married Maria Shelton. daughter of Philo Shelton, of Bridgeport, and by her had children as follows: Henry, and Henryetta, who married Henry Perry, a brother of Francis and Charles Perry. Jeremiah Sturges was prominent in political affairs, and he was president of the bank for many years. He taught navigation to all the sea captains of the State, keeping what was substantially a school of navigation. He died in the year 1845, his wife in 1861.

Jeremiah Sturges was also in charge of the Mill River Fencibles, a militia unit of the War of 1812. His son, Henry Sturges, succeeded to his father’s business. As further related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1899):

Though he followed shipbuilding only for a time, yet he retained his interest in the marine business for some years, retiring altogether early in life. Some time previous to the breaking out of the Civil war he purchased a farm in Plymouth, Litchfield county, on which he lived for some ten or twelve years, and then he purchased a plantation in southwest Georgia, which he kept seven years. This he exchanged for various properties, inclnding a farm on the Raritan river, and engaged in dairying on a large scale. After six or seven years thus spent. he retired from farming and dairying and returned to Southport, where he lived the remainder of his days. Though he was a graduate of Trinity College and a licensed lawyer, yet he never practiced law. Politically, he was a Republican, and had much to do in the way of administrator of estates, holding also several minor offices.

Mr. Sturges married Henryetta Baldwin, daughter of Abram Dudley Baldwin, of Greenfield Hill. He and his wife had six children, viz.: Jeremiah; Henry, living in Montreal, Canada; Henryetta Maria, married to Dr. William L. Wells; Dr. Abram Baldwin Sturges, of Southport; Anna B., married to John A. Gorham, of Southport: and William Shelton Sturges. Henry Sturges died in 1885

In 1906 the house was the residence of Dr. Abram B. Sturges.