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

Samuel Fielding House (1750)

The gambrel-roofed colonial cape-style house at 25 Marjorie Circle in Hebron was built c. 1745-1750 by Samuel Feilding. Soon after construction it was owned by Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy (1735-1784), a congregational minister who was influenced by the First Great Awakening. In 1791 the house was acquired by Amasa Gillett, whose widow later married Benjamin Phelps (the house was later called the Widow Polly Phelps Place). Gillett’s daughter Sibyl, who lived in the house until her death at the age of 95, made bonnets and had her shop in the house in the 1850s. Earlier, in 1835 the largest room in the house was used for Miss Bradford’s school for select young ladies. There is also a gambrel-roofed barn on the property.

New Video: A Lost Section of Main Street, Hartford CT

What used to be on Main Street between Center Church and the Gold Building? In this video I talk about a 1771 schoolhouse, the original 1764 home of the Hartford Courant, the Kellogg Brothers lithographers who rivaled Currier and Ives, Augustus Washington, who was a successful African-American daguerreotypist, John Porter, who founded one of New England’s first lunchroom chains, and more!

Walker Ferry House (1850)

Built circa 1850 and much altered in later years, the house at 10 Chestnut Street in Bethel was the home of shoemaker Walker Ferry, who had his shoe store in the building next door at 12 Chestnut Street. By 1867 the house was the residence of William Judson, a hatter, who had married Emeline Judd in 1849.

New Video: The G. Fox & Co. Christmas Village

This video remembers the two Christmas villages that appeared on the marquee of the G. Fox & Company department store in Hartford, Connecticut. The first village was created in 1959 and the second in 1967. Original 8mm movie of the Christmas village from 1960: https://youtu.be/B9W3Nr5UZHE

New Video: Before the Stilts Building: A Glimpse of Old Hartford

Before the Stilts building was erected in Hartford in 1981 there were numerous historic structures that once stood on the block of Main Street, north of the intersection with Church Street, including the Strand Theater, the American Industrial Building, a well-remembered 19th-century hotel and the home of the beloved Peanut Store.

New Video: The old Lord & Taylor, Bishops Corner, West Hartford

Lord & Taylor had its first department store outside the greater New York area at Bishops Corner in West Hartford Connecticut. In this video I describe the store, which opened with great fanfare in 1953 and moved out (to Westfarms Mall) in 1983. I also talk about the adjacent shopping center, the Dutchland Farms dairy restaurant and summer pony rides that had previously existed on the site in the 1930s and 40s, and the attempts by local residents to block the building of Lord & Taylor.

New Video: Before City Place (Old Asylum Street in Hartford, Connecticut)

This video is about what once existed on a block of Asylum Street in Hartford, CT where the City Place office towers were built in the 1980s. This included the house where J. P. Morgan was born, the sites of many historic Hartford businesses (including music stores, Turkish baths, bakeries and clothing stores), and a controversial mural that sparked public debate in the 1970s.