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This video is about the James Goodwin House, also known as Woodlands and the Goodwin Castle. Built in 1871, it stood near the intersection of Asylum Avenue and Woodland Street in Hartford. Once the largest private home in the state, it was torn down in 1940.

The Chuboda Photographs of the Goodwin Castle are at the Connecticut Historical Society: http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/objects/11861/

In the video I also show a c. 1900 photograph of the house, also from the Connecticut Historical Society: http://hdl.handle.net/11134/40002:14961

There’s also a photograph of the Goodwin Tombstone at Cedar Hill Cemetery from the Connecticut Historical Society: http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/objects/18229/

The photograph of the Twitchell House (accession number 2022.1.8) is also from the Connecticut Historical Society and is duplicated in Steve Courtney’s books Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain’s Closest Friend and Mark Twain’s Hartford.

In the video I show a streoview of the house from the collections of the New York Public Library: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-6daa-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Buy my books: “A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut” and “Vanished Downtown Hartford.” As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

New Video: Hartford’s Lost Castle

2 thoughts on “New Video: Hartford’s Lost Castle

  • May 23, 2022 at 8:35 am
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    Thoroughly enjoyed this video. I recall another Goodwin house on Asylum Avenue on the west side of the river which served for a time in the 1960s as UConn’s Hartford Branch. Classses were held in old bedrooms with blocked up fireplaces and paintings above. Also classes and evening gatherings in the glassed in extension. Library, science classes in the former stable building. Beautiful grounds to lounge and study on the grass on good days. I returned occasionally to walk the grounds when abandoned, and am glad to see it refitted for use for the condo complex there now.

  • May 24, 2022 at 2:14 pm
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    Dorian,
    Thanks for sharing your memories about that other Goodwin house!

    Dan

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