The house at 104 Silver Lane in East Hartford is a classic colonial saltbox. It was built c. 1785-1786 as a small three-room cottage with a rear shed roof by Abraham Clark, who had acquired the land in 1785. The structure was expanded into a five-bay saltbox around 1814 when there was a blacksmith shop just west of the house. There is evidence a tunnel once connected the house with the Hockanum River, about 250 yards away.
Long thought to date to the seventeenth century (a plaque on the house once displayed the year 1666), the house at 475 Tolland Street in East Hartford is now thought to be the house referred to by Joseph O. Goodwin in East Hartford: Its History and Traditions (1879): “The house next east of this, owned by Oliver W. Elmer, was the homestead of Jonathan Bidwell. He died in 1815.” It was likely built around the time of Bidwell’s marriage to Anne Benton in December 28, 1768. It was then owned by Bidwell’s son, also named Jonathan, who died in 1858. Oliver W. Elmer bought the house in 1864 from Bidwell’s daughter, Ruhamah Bidwell Elmer. The house once had a “coffin door” on the west side that was removed around 1987.
Jared Risley purchased the lot at 86-90 Burnside Avenue in East Hartford in 1827. The house that currently stands at that address was either an earlier house that he remodeled or a new house that he built on the site, possibly in the 1860s. Jared Risley (1801-1874) and his son, Seldon (1843-1905) were both carpenters. The house displays features of the Federal and Greek Revival styles.
Much altered over the years, the Classical Revival building at 1110-1112 Main Street in East Hartford was erected in 1832-1833. It was known as the Academy and housed the East Hartford Select School, also known as the Classical and English School. The school eventually closed and the building was acquired by Jonathan Tremaine Wells in 1858. It became part of the larger Wells estate to the east, which included the famous Wells Tavern. Upon his death in 1881, Wells willed the Academy to the town for use as a public building to be called Wells Hall. In 1885 it became East Hartford’s town hall and a new front entry tower was added to the structure. In addition to town offices, Wells Hall also housed a library and the police department, including jail cells. On the second floor was a large public hall, used as a ballroom and as a meeting place for the Grange and the Grand Army of the Republic. When the current Town Hall building was erected in 1937, ownership of Wells Hall reverted to the heirs of Jonathan Wells, as per his will. For many years the building was the Old Town Hall Inn and Restaurant. In the 1930s to 1950s, the Inn had a dinner theater that hosted famous performers. In more recent years the building has been restored and expanded and a 1924 addition on the front of the building, which for many years blocked the 1885 entrance, was removed. Wells Hall now houses the offices of the East Hartford Board of Education.
St. Rose Catholic Parish, located in the Burnside section of East Hartford, was established in 1920. The parish‘s first church was a Quonset hut on Church Street, situated between the current church (33 Church Street) and Burnside Avenue. A new church was dedicated on June 22, 1924. [see also Mike Sheridan, “St. Rose’s Church Parishioners Pitch In To Renovate Building,” Hartford Courant, July 28, 1974]. (more…)
In 1889, Daniel Bryan acquired the lot at 54 Wells Avenue and soon after erected the house that still stands there. Its gables are shingled and have decorated bargeboards and there is a distinctive circular corner porch. Bryan was a farmer, a janitor at East Hartford’s Wells Hall and the High School, and by 1900 was Superintendent of Center Cemetery. He was possibly the Daniel L. Bryan, whose years were 1855-1921.
The following description of the Burnside Methodist Episcopal Society appears in East Hartford: Its History and Traditions (1879), by Joseph O. Goodwin:
The first meeting-house of the church society in Scotland [the original name for the area called Burnside in East Hartford] stood on the street just cast of the residence of the late William Hanmer. It was a plain brown house, built sometime before 1834, without cupola or steeple. It was moved back, and is now used on the Hanmer place for a horse barn. The site of the present meeting-house in Burnside was given to the society by Mr. George Goodwin. This church has now a fine organ, and a live and growing membership.
The church burned down on January 15, 1893. A new church was dedicated on March 14, 1894. The church, located at 16 Church Street, on the corner of Burnside Avenue, has been much expanded over the years, including an attached three-story brick education and fellowship building, completed in 1953. In 2006, the Burnside Methodist Church merged with the Hockanum Methodist Church to form New Covenant Methodist Church.
