Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

New Video: Two Churches That Were Moved in Hartford, CT (1860 & 1907)

This video is about two churches that were moved from one street across town to another street in Hartford, CT. The Unitarian Church of the Savior (built in 1846) was moved in 1860 from Trumbull Street to Sigourney Street to become Trinity Episcopal Church. It was torn down in the 1890s. The Gleenwood Congregational Church (built in 1897) was moved in 1907 from Laurel Street to Park Street and Park Terrace, where it was renamed Pilgrim Congregational Church. In 1914 the congregation dissolved and the church became St. Paul’s English Lutheran Church, which later merged with Trinity Lutheran Church in 1943 to become Grace Lutheran Church. The former church building was then home to the French Social Club, which replaced it in the 1960s.

There’s a higher quality picture of the moving of the Glenwood Church in 1907 here: http://hdl.handle.net/11134/40002:18644

The church had to be moved over the Laurel Street Bridge which had undergone repairs earlier that same year: http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/object…

The site where the church was moved to is now a housing development: https://www.hubonpark.com/

In the video I use a section from the Hartford Atlases of 1880 and 1909. The 1880 Atlas can be found here: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas…

The 1909 Atlas can be found here: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas…

Grace Lutheran Church is here: https://www.graceistheplace.org/

The French Social Circle is here: https://www.facebook.com/FrenchSocial…

[New Video] Oakholm: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s (now lost) Original House in Hartford

Hall-Wilson Laboratory (1922)

Last week the Hartford Courant published a story about Hartford Hospital‘s plan to demolish the century-old Hall-Wilson Laboratory to expand its electrical power plant, a move opposed by preservationists. I found two Hartford Courant articles about the building at the time of its construction and its dedication.

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New Video: State Street in Hartford c. 1900

My latest video is about a photograph of State Street in Hartford from c. 1900. I describe all of the buildings that lined the street and what became of them. This is an expansion of my previous post about this photo. If you enjoy the video, please remember to hit the “Like” button. Also, please consider subscribing to the channel!

H.R. & W. Bringhurst Drugstore and Doctor’s Office (1953)

Mystic Seaport recreates a drugstore of the period 1870-1885 in a building the museum erected in 1953. A small recreated doctor’s office adjoins the drugstore building. The store is named for the Binghurst family of pharmacists, which began with Joseph Bringhurst (1767-1834), who operated a drugstore in Wilmington, Delaware. The Bringhurst collection was given to Mystic Seaport by Smith, Kline & French Laboratories, which had acquired it after the store closed. The building also contains the Abram P. Karsh collection of pharmaceutical items from the Philadelphia area.

Temperance House (1761)

Israel H. Wilson moved from Danbury to Bethel in 1836 and operated an undertaking business until 1851. He then opened the town’s first hotel, which was located in the house at 4 Chestnut Street. The house was built about 1761 and and at one time was a tavern, operated by P. T. Barnum‘s grandfather, Phineas Taylor, and then by his parents, Philo and Irena Barnum. Wilson was a advocate of the temperance cause: he named the hotel Temperance House and he also erected a temperance hall (no longer standing) just south of the hotel. By the late 1870s the hotel was known as the Bethel House or Bethel Hotel. Wilson retired from the hotel business in 1885. For some years the house was home to the Mead family and it is now a duplex. The house was much altered in the Italianate style in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.