Located at the corner of Worthington Ride and Sunset Lane in Berlin is a Tudor Revival/Shingle style house built c. 1905-1907 by Charles M. Jarvis, head of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company and a founder of the Berlin Construction Company. The property once included a bowling alley.
At 3015 Bronson Road in Fairfield is a windmill erected in 1893-1894 by Frederic Bronson on his estate, called Verna Farm. Standing 105 feet high, the Bronson Windmill pumped water from a well 75 feet below ground into a 7,500-gallon wooden storage tank 70 feet up inside the windmill. Note: the wheel on top of the windmill was not installed at time the photo above was taken. It remained in operation into the 1930s. The estate became the property of the Fairfield Country Day School, which gave the windmill to the Town of Fairfield in 1971. The windmill was restored around 1980. Damaged after a storm in 1996, the Bronson Windmill was restored under the management of the Fairfield Historical Society. Today it also serves as a cell phone tower: Sprint restored and rebuilt part of the structure as part of its leasing agreement.
The Shingle-style summer cottage at 27 Pettipaug Avenue in the Borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was built in 1881 by Charles Eben Jackson (1849-1923) of Middletown. As related in the Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut (1891):
Charles Eben Jackson was born in Middletown, January 25, 1849. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, Concord, N. H., receiving a thorough preparation for the business activities of life. After leaving school he engaged as a clerk in a mercantile establishment, and later in a banking office in New York city. In 1872 he made the acquaintance of Miss Evelyn Quintard, daughter of E. A. Quintard of New York city, whom he married in 1873, and by whom he has had eight children, seven of them now living. Mr. Jackson has for a number of years been at the head of the Middletown banking house of C. E. Jackson & Co., well known among the reputable financial institutions of the state. He is also vice-president of the Middlesex Banking Company, treasurer of the Berkeley Divinity School, and of the Russell Library Company, and has minor official connection with other institutions of Middletown. He is by religious faith and profession an Episcopalian, being a member and senior warden of Holy Trinity parish.
The cottage later sold to Margaret Cutter Goodrich, wife of Dr. Charles Goodrich, a Hartford obstetrician. The cottage then passed through other owners, being purchased by the Brainard family in 1949. You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 131-134.
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.
In 1881 a summer cottage in the Borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was built by Hariette Fenwick Jackson Giraud (1830-1923) of Middletown. In 1899, the cottage was moved back from Long Island Sound to Pettipaug Avenue by Morgan G. Bulkeley to make way for his new and impressive cottage. The former Giraud Cottage was moved again, this time one lot west, in 1913 to make way for the Davis Cottage. Bulkeley gave the Giraud Cottage, now 12 Pettipaug Avenue, to his son, Morgan Jr. (1885-1926), in 1919 and it was then passed to his widow, Ruth Collins Bulkeley (1887-1973). You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 155-156.
The Second Congregational Church of Manchester was formed and its first house of worship was built in the northern section of town in 1851. A new church was built on the same site, 385 North Main Street, in 1889. It is a Shingle style edifice on a high rusticated brownstone foundation. (more…)
Walter C. Clark, who became president of the Aetna Fire Insurance Company in 1892, built a summer cottage in Fenwick in 1884 on a lot he purchased from Francis Goodwin, who was on his board of directors. After Clark’s death in 1919, the cottage was acquired by Houghton Bulkeley (1896-1966), son of governor Morgan G. Bulkeley. Houghton Bulkeley, who named the cottage Seagrove, was an authority on Connecticut Antiques. After his death, the cottage was owned by the McDowell family. You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 150-153.
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