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.

Fine Arts Theater (1916)

The Fine Arts Theater in Westport was built in 1916 by business partners Morris Epstein and Robert Joselovsky (Joseloff) next to the old Town Hall on the site where Petrie’s Ice Cream Parlor had stood until 1910. It began as a single screen movie theater, with a second screen being added later. Known as Fine Arts 1 & 2, they were later joined by Fine Arts 3 (located to the rear) and Fine Arts 4 (located down the road). The building‘s Colonial Revival facade was added during a renovation in 1940. The theater closed in 1999 and the building was remodeled as a retail space, first a branch of Restoration Hardware and now a Barnes & Noble.

New Video: Lost Buildings of Asylum Street, HARTFORD CT (64-110 Asylum St)

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This video is about the lost buildings that once stood on the north side of Asylum Street in Hartford, just east of Trumbull Street and the Brownstone Building. Among the businesses that occupied these buildings over the years were Katten & Sons clothing store, Hollander’s clothing store, Bond clothes, Tracy & Robinson hardware store, Harris Parker Company toy store, Gemmill & Burnham Co. clothing store and Kennedy’s clothing store.