Hartford’s Lost Red Tavern

My latest Substack piece is about the Old Red Tavern, which was opened by Capt. Israel Seymour in 1775 on part of the site of the current state capitol grounds in Hartford. You can read in the article about how Capt. Seymour was killed by a lightning strike in 1784 as he stood inside the door of the building. The old tavern building was moved to Park Street in 1824, where it was standing when the above photograph was taken in 1896. The structure was torn down in the mid-1920s.

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Over the last few years I’ve made a number of videos about the history of Hartford’s riverfront area and I’ve now combined them into a single compilation video. The section of the now lost Commerce Street, between State Street and Morgan Street, was the center of the old West Indies trade in the early nineteenth century, back in the days when some of the city’s wealthiest citizens lived nearby. Some of the old buildings connected to this era stood until the Connecticut Valley railroad tracks were built along the riverside in the early 1870s. Much of what was left was lost when the Bulkeley Bridge was erected at the start of the twentieth century. At that time, a new Connecticut Boulevard was constructed that wiped out much that had existed adjacent to the river at the foots of State, Ferry and Morgan Streets. New buildings that were erected at that time, as well as structures associated with the city’s role in the tobacco boom of that era (and Connecticut Boulevard itself) were then lost when the interstate highways came through.

I cover all of this in these videos, as well as the history of Dutch Point, the lost peninsula that once existed where the Park River (now buried in an underground conduit) met the Connecticut River. Named for the old Dutch fort that stood nearby in the 1600s, Dutch Point was a center of shipbuilding and recieved lumber from the great log drives down the Connecticut River. It was later the site of the now lost Dutch Point power plant.

If you’ve seen some (or all!) of these videos, I hope you enjoy revisiting this amazing story and finding them now conviniently in a single place (in a video that’s over 2 hours long!). If you missed any of them, I encourage you to check them out (and don’t forget to leave a comment)!

A Lost Block of Hartford’s Trumbull Street and neighboring Church Street

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My latest YouTube video is about the history of the block on the east side of Trumbull Street, between Pratt and Church Streets, a the south side of Church Street around the corner. Things that once existed here include a lost mansion that was home to prominent Connecticut politicians, another notable citizen’s plumbing business, the temporary G. Fox & Co. store that was built in the aftermath of the great 1917 fire, a building where the owner’s brother fell to his death, and many Jewish-owned businesses, including a long-lived tailoring supply store (D. & R. Blutstein), a notable furrier (S. Max & Co.) and the bar and grill owned by legendary boxer Louis “Kid” Kaplan.