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

New Video: Two Early American Children’s Book Authors from Connecticut

In this video I talk about two Connecticut writers of the early nineteenth century who wrote factual books for children. Jesse Olney, who served as the principal of Hartford’s First District School and later lived in Southington, wrote bestselling geography textbooks. Samuel Griswold Goodrich, who wrote under the name Peter Parley, wrote a long series of books that covered a variety of subjects, including history, geography and science. He grew up in Ridgefield, spent his young adulthood in Hartford and, after living in Massachusetts and abroad, moved to Southbury just before his death.

Former Mill Office in South Glastonbury (1720)

The building at 9 Tryon Street in South Glastonbury may have been built as early as 1720. Around that time Thomas Hollister and Thomas Welles started a saw mill on the east side of nearby Roaring Brook. The mill was linked to the shipbuilding industry in the area at the time. By the mid-eighteenth century this early operation had developed into what was known as the “Great Grist mill at Nayaug.” The house at 9 Tryon Street may have been the bake house associated with that mill that is mentioned in a 1783 deed. According to one source, the Welles-Hollister grist mill and bake oven on Roaring Brook at Nayaug was completely destroyed in the great flood of 1869 and the mill had to be rebuilt on the northwest side of the bridge over Roaring Brook at the foot of High Street. Later, in the early twentieth century, there was a feldspar mill on the east side of the brook and the building at 9 Tryon Street may have served as the mill office of owner Louis W. Howe and then as housing for a spar mill worker’s family. Howe sold the house c. 1928 to Mrs. Aaron Kinne, who had the interior remodeled c. 1940 to designs by restoration architect Norris F. Prentice. It was remodeled a second time in 2002.

New Video: Lost Buildings of Pearl Street: Hello Girls, Rugs, a Police Chase & the Y.M.C.A. (Hartford, CT)

In this video I talk about lost buildings on the south side of Pearl Street, west of Trumbull Street, in Hartford. There’s a former jail that became the home of Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., a school that became a Turkish Bath House, the Telephone Building, Donchian’s Oriental Rugs, the A.M.E. Zion Church, the fire H.Q. and the Y.M.C.A. Along the way I talk about a wall that collapsed with a crash, a broken window that led to a police chase and the recreation room where the “Hello Girls” used to rest between shifts at the switchboard.

New Video: The Hartford, Plimpton’s, and Seidler & May Furniture (Lost Buildings of Pearl St., Hartford, CT)

In this video I talk about buildings on the north side of Pearl Street, west of Trumbull St., in Hartford, CT. I focus on lost buildings, including the old 1870 headquarters of the Hartford Insurance Company, Plimpton’s envelope and stationary factory, and Seidler & May’s furniture store, among others.

New Video: What used to be where the Wadsworth Atheneum & Municipal Building Stand Today in Hartford, CT?

Many buildings with interesting histories were torn down to make way for the construction of the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Municipal Building in Hartford, Connecticut. Buildings that used to stand between Main Street and Prospect Street, north of Arch Street, included the house of a notable figure from the American Revolution who was visited there by George Washington, the home of the Atheneum’s founder, the home of a prominent minister, and an Episcopal Church. Find out about these and other lost buildings in this video.

New Video: Lost Buildings of Hartford on the South Side of Pearl Street, between Main and Trumbull Sts.

This video is about the buildings that once lined the south side of Pearl Street, east of Trumbull Street in Hartford, Connecticut. In the mid-1920s, when Pearl was considered the “Wall Street of Hartford” its buildings included the State Savings Bank, the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, the National Fire Insurance Company, the Dime Savings Bank and the Judd Building. All of these were demolished by the mid-1970s.

Greens Farms Church (1853)

In 1711, settlers in the district of Greens Farms (then the West Parish of Fairfield and now part of Westport) were permitted by Connecticut General Court to form their own Congregational Society. By 1720, the congregation had completed a meeting house at the foot of Morningside Drive and Greens Farms Road. The community grew rapidly and a larger meeting house was needed. It was erected in 1738 at the corner of Green’s Farms Road and the Sherwood Island Connector, opposite the Colonial Burial Ground. This building was burned by a British raiding party in 1779 during the Revolutionary War. The congregation’s third meeting house was completed in 1781 on Hillandale Road. It was replaced by the current Green’s Farms Church, a Greek Revival-style building, in 1853. The Parish of Greens Farms was annexed by the Town of Westport in 1842.

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