Thomas B. Chapman House (1895)

The house at 706 Prospect Avenue in Hartford was built in 1895 for businessman Thomas B. Chapman (1859-1904), a grandson of Episcopal Bishop Thomas Church Brownell. As the Hartford Courant reported on July 24, 1895: “The house was built from plans prepared by W. F. Becker, Edward O’Neil was the contractor, Olds & Whipple did the plumbing and Walter F. Blake did the decorating. The house cost about $9,000.” Chapman initially rented the house to his father-in-law, William H. Post (1833-1899), a prominent Hartford merchant who sold carpets, curtains, and wallpaper. Post passed away in 1899 and Chapman was living in the house at the time of his own death in 1904. His widow, Helen Post Chapman (1860-1941), continued to reside in the house into the 1920s. Her memoir, My Hartford in the Nineteenth Century, was published in 1928. To learn more about the house and about a dramatic explosion in 1919 that destroyed its kitchen, read my Substack article: https://oldhartford.substack.com/p/when-an-explosion-destroyed-a-hartford?r=4j8x6h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true