German Lutheran Church of the Reformation (1898)

49 Charter Oak Avenue, Hartford

The German Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Hartford was organized in 1880. The church acquired the former St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Market Street, which it occupied until 1898. In that year, the church sold the building, which became St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church. The German Lutheran Church then moved to a new building at 49 Charter Oak Avenue. Designed by Albert Fehmer, it was dedicated January 22, 1899. For a brief period, in 1906-1907, the church was used by St. Paul’s English Lutheran Church (as related in a Hartford Courant article from April 3, 1921, “St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Reaches Fifteenth Year”). That church moved its services to the Y.M.C.A. building, but later returned to Charter Oak Avenue, acquiring the German Lutheran Church’s property in 1909. Efforts to consolidate the two church did not work out, however, and the property was returned to the German Lutheran Church in 1911. St. Paul’s Church eventually moved to a building at the corner of Park Street and Park Terrace. The German Lutheran Church of the Reformation merged with the German Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, located at the corner of Babcock and Russ Streets, in 1916. This united church finally merged with St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in 1943 to form Grace Lutheran Church. The church on Charter Oak Avenue was sold. In the twentieth century it became Gospel Hall and is now Greater Joy Mission Church Of Deliverance. The church edifice has lost its original small steeple and entry porch with two side stairs. Its three memorial stained glass windows in the front gable have been covered up (and possibly removed).

Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church (1894)

Former Church of the Immaculate Conception, Park Street, Hartford

It’s Hartford Church Week on this blog! The Church of the Immaculate Conception, at 560 Park Street in Hartford, was built in 1894 to serve the many Roman Catholic immigrant factory workers who were then moving to the Frog Hollow neighborhood. The Gothic Revival church was designed by Michael O’Donohue. In 1981, a priest discovered a homeless man frozen to death near the church steps. In response, the church’s basement was opened to homeless men. Church members volunteered to cook meals and donate clothing. The parish became a leader in public outreach in Hartford. In 1990, with the number of homeless people in Hartford increasing, the Immaculate Conception Shelter & Housing Corporation (ICSHC) was formed to confront the issue. When Immaculate Conception Parish merged with St. Anne Parish in 2000, ICSHC purchased the former church property

Herrick Frost House (1882)

612 Chapel Street, New Haven

Built circa 1882 (or 1876?) and designed by Henry Austin & Son, the house at 612 Chapel Street in New Haven was the residence of Herrick Frost. As described in Volume 2 of A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (1918), Herrick Payne Frost

in 1856 made his home in New Haven, where after several experiments in various enterprises, in 1858 he formed a partnership with Julius Tyler, Jr., establishing the wholesale grocery house of Tyler & Frost, on State street. This business Mr. Frost prosecuted with great energy and varied success for nearly twenty years, the partnership being dissolved in 1876, at about the time the telephone was just coming into public notice.

Inspired by Alexander Graham Bell’s demonstration of his new invention–the telephone–at Skiff’s Opera House in New Haven on April 27, 1877, Civil War veteran and telegraph man George W. Coy created an experimental switchboard. He won a Bell telephone franchise for New Haven and Middlesex counties and received financial backing from Herrick Frost and Walter Lewis, superintendent of the New Haven Clock Company. Establishing the District Telephone Company of New Haven, the partners opened the world’s first telephone exchange in January 1878 with 21 subscribers.

Again according to A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County:

The new enterprise attracted general attention, and in less than three months after its inauguration it had one hundred and fifty subscribers, and within a year over four hundred. Mr. Frost and his partner were thus instrumental in giving to New Haven the credit of leading the world in this important line. By 1880 capital had become interested in the further development of the system, and the New Haven Telephone Company was merged into the Connecticut Telephone Company, with the late Marshall Jewell, of Hartford, as president, and Hon. Charles L. Mitchell and Morris F. Tyler as directors. This company in 1884 underwent another change, becoming the Southern New England Telephone Company, with a capital of one and a half million dollars. Through the foresight, energy and ability of Mr. Frost, to whom was committed the general management of this great and growing corporation, the lines of the company were carried into nearly every town, hamlet and school district, within the territory in which they operated, and until a very few years ago there was no district in the world with so many telephones in use, in proportion to its population, as Connecticut.

William Sears House (1860)

10 Academy Street, New Haven

The 1825 house of Bethel Tuttle, at 10 Academy Street in New Haven, was later expanded around 1860 into an Italianate-style house by William H. Sears, who worked at E. Arnold & Co. According to the History of the City of New Haven to the Present Time (1887):

The firm of E. Arnold & Co., 236 to 240 State street, dealers in stoves, furnaces, ranges, and galvanized cornices, was formed in 1846, and has been located on the same street ever since. They are also engaged in tin-roofing, plumbing, and gas-fitting. The individual members of the firm are E. and George J. Arnold.

Florence Mill, Rockville (1864)

Florence Mill

The Florence Mill stands on the site of an earlier mill at 121 West Main Street in Vernon’s industrial village of Rockville. The original mill was built in 1831 by Colonel Francis McLean, in partnership with Alonzo Bailey. Framing from the old Vernon meeting house was used in its construction. Called the Frank Mill, it produced cassimere (cashmere). It was replaced by a new mill building in 1847, but this burned down in 1853 and the company collapsed. Nathaniel O. Kellogg purchased the factory’s remains and started a new company. He built the Florence Mill in 1864, Rockville‘s first example of slow-burn construction: brick masonry exterior walls with wood timber frames. The mill closed in 1869 and continued as a woolen mill under other owners until White, Corbin & Company converted it for the manufacture of envelopes in 1881. In that year, it was described as the largest brick building in Rockville. The company later consolidated with others to form the U.S. Envelope Company in 1898. The factory closed in the 1970s and was converted to become senior housing.