This video features fifteen houses considered to be mansions in their time that were built between 1798 and the 1870s in Hartford, CT. They range from the elegant Federal-style residences of the early 1800s to later homes built in the Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate and French Second Empire styles.
This video is a series of extended quotations from the Hartford Courant newspaper printed between 1905 and 1908 about old buildings that existed along the Connecticut River in Hartford, Connecticut, some that were lost when the Bulkeley Bridge was built in 1908 and some when the Valley Railroad came through in 1871.
Calvary Episcopal Church, which is a Gothic Revival-style stone building on Church Street in the Borough of Stonington, is not large, but is connected to a huge name in ecclesiastical architecture: Richard Upjohn, who also designed Trinity Church in Manhattan. His son, Richard M. Upjohn, was the architect of the Connecticut State Capitol Building in Hartford. The Calvary Episcopal parish was established in 1849 and the church was consecrated in 1849. The church faces west, with its side along Church Street, and directly across from it is a board-and-batten chapel, also designed by Upjohn, that was built as a Sunday School room in 1859. It was moved to its current location in 1892 and faces east. A three-sided enclosure is formed because a rectory, that is set back from the other two buildings and faces north, was erected where the chapel had stood.
(more…)
This video is about a house that was built circa 1780 in Hartford, Connecticut for the Revolutionary War diplomat Silas Deane. Deane never got to live in the house (in fact he never set foot in it!), but his brother Barnabas moved in instead. The house was built by the Scottish builder William Spratts, who had been a prisoner of war. He built a number of other high-style residences in Connecticut at the time. The Deane House was torn down in 1926.
In so many of my other videos I describe what has been lost and destroyed in downtown Hartford, CT. But in this video I talk about the great buildings that survive from the days before the great mid-century urban renewal projects, from old houses (Butler-McCook, Barnard & Hills Houses), to later residential and commercial buildings (the Hotel Capitol, McCone Block, Cheney Building & the Linden), and then from department stores (Sage-Allen, Wise-Smith, G. Fox) and office towers (Hartford Trust Co. and Travelers), to churches (Center and South Congressional, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Peter’s, South Park Methodist & Central Baptist) and great public and institutional buildings (South Green Fire Station, the Wadsworth Atheneum, Municipal Building & Old State House). Which are your favorites?
Historic structures like the original Connecticut State House of 1719, the Jeremiah Wadsworth House, which stood on the site of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, some of the city’s lost colonial taverns and coffee houses, and a tavern that still stands in Andover, CT play a role in my new video about the historic first meeting of George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau in 1780.
In the 20th century, large sections of downtown Hartford were torn down to be replaced by new buildings and massive urban renewal projects. But the worst situations are when buildings were torn down and only replaced by a parking lot. In this video I give 8 examples of what was lost.
Please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and becoming a channel member!
You must be logged in to post a comment.