The Connecticut Historical Society was founded in 1825, making it one of the oldest state historical societies in the country.

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The Connecticut Historical Society is the state's primary historical repository. Founded in 1825, it is one of the oldest state historical societies in the country. It is located in an old house just to the west of Saint Francis Hospital. The Society operates a museum, library and gift shop at this location. It contains an enormous collection of Connecticut-related materials dating from the 17th century to today including four million manuscripts, over 265,000 artifacts, and125,000 books and pamphlets. There are many notable highlights of the collection such as one of the American flags that was hung in the Presidential box at Ford's Theater where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and a rare 18th century "round hat" worn by a man named Phineas Meigs, who was perhaps the last American killed in the Revolutionary War (there are two bullet holes in the hat). The museum presents changing exhibits throughout the year and the society also offers many educational programs for children.

Connecticut Historical Society

This short walk includes many of the leading museums of Connecticut, including the Connecticut Historical Society and Harriet Beecher Stowe House. The tour also includes buildings of architectural and historical significance such as Temple Beth Israel, Elizabeth Park, and its famous conservatory, the Ambassador Apartments, The tour also includes the infamous "Facade House," a historic home that appears to be a substantial mansion but is only eighteen feet wide. The tour concludes at the John & Isabella Beecher Hooker House and Nook Farm. 

The beginning of Congregation Beth Israel (CBI) 1843 is a significant year in the history of Judaism in Connecticut. Prior to this time, Jews were not permitted to worship publicly or build synagogues. A small but active group of Jewish immigrants petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly to change this. The Assembly declined to alter the Connecticut Constitution, but it did decree that Jews should have freedom of worship, including the right to gather and form religious societies. This decision marked the beginning of Beth Israel as a small group of Jews in Hartford began to worship together. CBI members were German Jews. They and their families immigrated to the United States from Germany during the mid-19th century. Connecticut also became home to a significant Eastern European Jewish population, due to the large numbers of Eastern European immigrants to the US between 1880 and 1924. During this period, around 2.5 million Eastern European Jews moved to the US, a much larger number than the approximately 250,000 German Jews who had immigrated slightly earlier and established congregations such as Beth Israel. Thanks largely to Eastern European immigration, Connecticut's Jewish population rose from almost 1500 in 1877 to around 91,500 in 1927 (Ransom, p. 8).&nbsp; The community's expansion During the 1840s and 1850s, CBI undertook many social, educational, and philanthropic initiatives. A religious school opened in 1849 and within two years served 25 children. The Ararat Lodge of B'nai Brith and the Deborah Society were established in 1851 and 1852 respectively. Both groups carried out charitable work. For example, members of the Deborah Society, a community of Connecticut women, visited the sick and helped them access doctors, raised money for widows, collected donations of food and clothing, sewed burial shrouds, and donated to the relief efforts for the San Francisco earthquake.&nbsp; In 1854, a bequest of $5000 from shipping merchant Judah Touro allowed CBI to purchase and renovate a former church to create a designated synagogue in Hartford. Known as Touro Hall, this structure served the community from 1856 until 1875, when it was damaged by fire. Touro made numerous other philanthropic donations throughout his life and in his will, contributing to synagogues, hospitals, and libraries. Around this time, the congregation also began to make changes to Orthodox traditions and adopt Reform practices, such as the installation of a choir.&nbsp;Isaac Mayer became the community's first rabbi in 1859 and is remembered as a "moderate reformer." Disagreements between Orthodox and Reform members of CBI Tensions emerged during the 1860s between Orthodox and Reform groups. This led to 34 CBI members leaving the congregation to found their own Orthodox synagogue,&nbsp;Adas Yisroule. However, several of these members returned to CBI in 1877. Even after their departure, the congregation continued to disagree about the extent to which new reforms should be adopted. Rabbi M.S. Wiener, for instance, strongly supported reform, including the expensive acquisition of a new organ. Amidst disapproval from CBI's remaining traditionalists, Wiener only stayed for two years. At this point, however, changes were already well underway, and Reform practice would eventually take hold at Beth Israel. 1870 saw the dedication of the congregation's new organ, and 1874 the arrival of ardent reformer Dr. Solomon Deutsch as the community's new rabbi. He and eleven other rabbis had written the "Philadelphia Platform," a text on radical reform. In his previous congregations, he had instilled new Reform practices, to the delight of some and distaste of others. Deutsch was concerned about young Jews abandoning the Orthodox faith of their parents and converting to other traditions such as Unitarianism. Without reform, he feared that American Judaism could not hold onto its members.&nbsp; As CBI's interactive timeline explains, Deutsch <blockquote>"advocated officiating at interfaith marriages; he instituted changes in worship services and prayer books; changes in mourning practices; and one of the most radical changes of the time---allowing men to worship without a head covering. This last change was perceived by the traditionalists among the Beth Israel membership as an irrevocable break with Jewish tradition, which tipped the balance in favor of assimilation over continuity with the Jewish past. His tenure at Beth Israel proved to be a stormy one, but by hiring Deutsch, the Board took a decisive and irrevocable step toward Reform Judaism." </blockquote>(Zande et al., "Shaping Who We Are," 1874).&nbsp; Later in the decade, another breakaway group, consisting of 22 members who wanted more radical reform,&nbsp;would leave Beth Israel to form a new congregation: Ohaba Shalom. The new congregation was short-lived, however, and its members rejoined Beth Israel in 1880. Charter Oak Temple, 1876 As CBI continued to grow, its leaders decided to build a new synagogue, known as the Charter Oak Temple. While previously they had worshiped in various homes and workplaces, and then in a renovated church, the decision to commission a new, purpose-built synagogue gave the congregation full creative and architectural freedom over its design. Members' German heritage influenced the new temple's design. In particular, Berlin's New Synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse, built in 1859 and consecrated in 1866,&nbsp;provided inspiration both for Temple Emanu-El in New York City and Temple Beth Israel (Charter Oak) in Hartford. As David Ransom explains, the Charter Oak&nbsp;synagogue both reflected Judaism's traditions as well as "current fashionable practice of the times," striking a balance between respectability and distinctiveness&nbsp;(p. 6). While most Christian churches of the late 19th century exhibited Gothic Revival architecture, Jewish congregations tended to prefer other styles such as Romanesque Revival and often incorporated elements from Byzantine design or the Islamic architecture of North Africa and Iberia.&nbsp;CBI's Charter Oak Temple helped set architectural precedent for other Connecticut synagogues: "The basic design for Connecticut urban synagogues established by Beth Israel,
evoking Oranienburgerstrasse and Emanu-El, is the norm against which subsequent urban
Connecticut synagogues are discussed" (p. 7). Later Connecticut synagogues generally followed the architectural norms and patterns of Beth Israel. One such example is Hartford's Ados Israel Synagogue, built in 1898 by an Eastern European Orthodox congregation. Unfortunately, this synagogue no longer survives.&nbsp; The Beth Israel temple on Charter Oak is now a community center. The move to West Hartford: Temple Beth Israel (built 1933-1936) During the 1930s, CBI moved from Hartford to West Hartford, resulting in the construction of this distinctive, domed synagogue on Farmington Avenue. Its large Byzantine dome, though common elsewhere, was quite rare among Jewish buildings in Connecticut despite the general appreciation for Byzantine design elements. Made from limestone, the synagogue is a 12-sided polygon, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. It was designed by Charles Greco. The move to West Hartford reflects the transition of Hartford's Jewish communities from downtown to the suburbs. This trend would only increase over time, particularly in the aftermath of WWII, when numerous Jewish families and communities left the city center.

Congregation Beth Israel (CBI) is among the oldest Jewish communities in Connecticut. It began as an Orthodox congregation and is now one of the biggest Reform Jewish congregations in the region. Beth Israel formed during the 19th century and built a prominent  synagogue in Hartford in 1876. The congregation is a founding member of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now known as the Union for Reform Judaism. During the 1930s, the community relocated to West Hartford and began conducting worship in a new synagogue with a striking Byzantine dome. Designed by Charles R. Greco and built from 1933 to 1936, Temple Beth Israel marks the transition of this Jewish community from the city center out to the suburbs. CBI has continued expanding over the decades and is now a spiritual home for over 700 families.

Temple Beth Israel

<div>In the years following the creation of the park, the city acquired additional acreage via donation and purchase. By 1898, the park served as a plant nursery for all city parks. Superintendent of Parks Theodore Wirth designed the park gardens in 1900. Although the Olmsted firm served as consultants for the Hartford park system at the time, the gardens of Elizabeth Park are, on the whole, more formal and ornamental in style than the more natural settings typical of a Frederick Law Olmsted design.</div><div> </div><div>The park’s 2.5 acre rose garden opened to the public in 1903, making this the first municipal garden devoted exclusively to rose cultivation. Park visitors had more to occupy them than simply stopping to smell the roses, however. The former Pond residence at that time contained a small branch of the Hartford Public Library. the park also featured a pond that was home to ice skating, hockey and curling each winter. Several years later, a bowling green was added and tennis courts and baseball fields followed shortly thereafter. During the Great Depression, construction of new structures in the park served as an important source of employment with the addition of a clubhouse for the bowling green and a brownstone structure housing public restrooms.</div><div> </div><div>By the 1970s, the future of the park appeared less rosy. The&nbsp;city determined that it could no longer afford to fund the upkeep on the rose garden. Local residents were aghast to hear that the city planned to plow the rose garden under the ground to avoid the cost of upkeep. Horrified Hartfordians, refusing to take "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" for an answer, banded together to form the Friends of Elizabeth Park. The organization began their efforts to save the rose garden by first raising enough money to replace the rose bushes that had died of neglect. After restoring the garden to its former appearance, the Friends decided to raise funds and volunteer their time to provide ongoing care of those rosebushes and the park’s other plantings. The volunteer effort is still active under the authority of the Elizabeth Park Conservancy, a local nonprofit that holds fundraising events&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;contributing their time to restore and maintain the park’s historic buildings and grounds.</div><div> </div><div>Today, the park consists of just over 100 acres, the majority of which are in West Hartford owing to shifting boundary lines. In addition to gardens, both rose and perennial, the park contains two hiking trails (one on the east side, one on the west), nine tennis courts, three baseball fields, two softball fields, two lawn bowling/croquet fields, two basketball courts, a playscape, a picnic area, a scenic overlook, a pond, and four historic greenhouses. These centenarian structures are still used to cultivate plantings that will be used throughout the Hartford park system, but in deference to their age, they are only open to the public during the annual spring flower show in March. One notable absence from the park's grounds, however, is that of the original Pond house. This structure, having fallen into disrepair, was demolished in 1956, but was replaced just three years later with a building called the Elizabeth Pond Memorial. This attractive red brick structure now houses an auditorium, a banquet hall, a snack bar and an upscale restaurant called the Pond House Café.&nbsp; </div><div>Elizabeth Park is a lively place throughout the year. It hosts concerts, movie nights, poetry reading, yoga classes and other civic events in addition to winter sports. The park is also among Hartford’s favorite wedding venues, even in wintertime when ceremonies take place indoors in the Garden Room at the Pond House Café. The Spring Greenhouse Show each March helps Hartford residents get a jump start on spring fever, and Rose Weekend in June celebrates health and wellness and the arts as well as flowers and plants of all kinds - although the rose, of course, still reigns supreme. In fact, an image of Elizabeth Park’s iconic rose arbor was chosen as lead photo for a Time Magazine 2018 article on best parks in each state – and, of course, Elizabeth Park was voted #1 for the state of Connecticut.</div>

Elizabeth Park is home to the nation’s first public rose garden. the rose garden dates back to 1903 while Elizabeth Park traces its origin to 1894,. In that year, prominent Hartford businessman Charles H. Pond passed away. Pond's last will and testament bequeathed his home, along with the surrounding 90 acres of land, to the city, with the stipulation that the land would become a public park named in honor of his late wife Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth Park and Elizabeth Park Rose Garden 

<div>The Austin House was built in 1930, three years after 26 year old Chick Austin had assumed directorship of Hartford’s renowned Atheneum. Its neo-Palladian style was inspired by a 16th century Venetian villa Austin and his wife had admired while on their European honeymoon. While this copy gives the initial appearance of marble-columnned majesty, a closer look shows that the exterior is, like a stage set, made from painted wood. This trompe l’oeil trickery is actually rather appropriate, considering that Chick was, in addition to being a museum director, wealthy playboy, dilettante artist, and showman, also a magician who performed as the Great Osram.</div><div> </div><div>Inside, the house is a unique mashup of different styles and techniques. While Chick did not actually build the house with his own two hands, he certainly had more than a hand in the interior design and decoration. Downstairs, the house is somewhat in keeping with the Italian Renaissance exterior, with the rooms reflecting baroque splendor which, as with the exterior, is slightly less impressive on a closer viewing since Chick’s own attempts at painting and upholstery are a bit rough around the edges. Upstairs, he indulged in his secondary passion for modernism – in fact, the Osram lighting fixtures in the Bauhaus-inspired bathroom were to lend Chick his stage name. The dressing room he created for his wife Helen is considered to be one of the country’s first International Style interiors, with its Black linoleum floor and walls painted each one in a different color.&nbsp; </div><div>While the Austin House may not have been to everyone’s taste aesthetically, it soon became quite the gathering spot for the Smart Set, a regular Who’s Who of midcentury artistic elite. No lesser lights than George Balanchine, Alexander Calder, Salvador Dali, Martha Graham, Agnes de Mille, and Gertrude Stein once sat down to dine on Chick’s home-cooked meals in his hand-decorated dining room, while composer Aaron Copland once sat and played the piano in the silk-panelled music room until 4 am. All this revelry continued until the early 1940s when WWII put a damper on everyone’s fun, and the party was definitely over by 1944 when Chick and the Atheneum came to a parting of the ways. Chick didn’t stick around Hartford much after that, returning to the nest only at Christmastime and then one final time in 1957 to die.&nbsp; </div><div>Helen Austin stayed on in the Hartford house even after her wandering spouse had moved on. She lived there up until 1985, at which time she, somewhat surprisingly, donated it to the very institution that had given her husband the boot some 40 years earlier. It might have given Chick a little posthumous satisfaction, however, to note that the Atheneum was subsequently stuck with nearly two years and half a million bucks worth of renovation work on the old place. The house and its interior had originally cost around $80,000, but most of the bills had been picked up by Chick’s indulgent mother. </div><div>Today, the Austin House remains one of Hartford’s more exclusive attractions. The house is only open for tours a few times a month and usually tours are limited to small groups and require a $25 per person donation.</div>

This Hartford landmark was the home of Arthur Everett “Chick” Austin Jr., and is known locally as the "Facade House" and other nicknames. The home's exterior was designed to replicate the appearance of a spacious mansion when in reality, the majority of the structure is quite narrow deep despite the property's length and grand exterior. Austin was only in his 20s when he assumed directorship of Hartford’s venerable Wadsworth Atheneum. The man behind this Scarborough Street home described his residents as being “just like me.” He went on to clarify that this was due to the house’s reputation as being “all façade.” In fact, “Façade House” was one of the nicknames given to this residence, along with “Hollywood House” and “Pasteboard Palace” although those even less enamored of its peculiar charm would go so far as to call it “an excrescence.” The house, whose impressive-at-a-distance 86 foot long exterior belies its narrow, 18 foot wide interior, is nevertheless as full of surprise and intrigue as its former owner.

A. Everett Austin House

The interior of the Ambassador Apartments building features long hallways that stretch the full length of the building on either side. A lobby is located in the center of the building in the “hyphen” of the H-shape design. While the interior design has undergone numerous renovations for livability standards, the general layout is still very indicative of its past.&nbsp; Many of the individual units have undergone change, the overall appearance, function, and layout of the building remain&nbsp;consistent with its original design.&nbsp; Additionally, remnants of 1925 renovations are still visible. The exterior of the building is almost identical to its original design in 1917.

Prior to this building, several other structures were located here. At least as early as 1880, Pliny Jewell, a Hartford property developer, owned a stretch of property that extended from the current location all the way up to Niles Street to the north.&nbsp; The Jewell family owned and operated the Jewell Belting Company, the greatest holding of which, at the time, was a massive estate house on the site that would later house the Ambassador Apartments.This estate house housed multiple members of the Jewell family at times but also, notably, served as the official residence of Governor George L. Lilley, who died shortly after moving into the estate.&nbsp; The Jewell family would remain in possession of the estate following the Governor’s death until 1912, at which point the property changed hands numerous times.



Following the first sale of the property to Dunn &amp; Waterman, it was then bought by Colonial Real Estate, Warren D. Chase of Back and Chase, and, finally, Nicolo Carabillo.&nbsp; Carabillo would, through a questionably legal process, be the real estate developer responsible for creating the Ambassador Apartments as they appear today.

Carabillo originally acquired a building permit for a small tenement building on the site of the current Ambassador Apartments.&nbsp; What Carabillo actually built was a massive building with over six times the occupancy he had originally reported to the city.&nbsp; Designed by Berenson and Moses in three stages of building, the Ambassador Apartments was an undertaking of truly unexpected proportions.&nbsp; Nicolo, hoping to create a truly luxury residence, pushed for grand designs including an extremely unique offering at the time: view of the outside from all apartment units.



Nicolo’s goal was to have additional facilities located on site to serve the residents.&nbsp; He originally boasted plans for a barber shop, bowling alleys, and gardens, and, while he did ultimately deliver on some of these, a major fire slowed down the development of the property, resulting in bowling alleys being foregone for two further shops.&nbsp; There was an immense dining room designed for both mass accommodations and to serve as a dance floor for the residents.



The Ambassador Apartments held two names before it was known by its most famous title.&nbsp; At groundbreaking, it was known as Jewell Court, later having its name changed to Hotel St. Nicholas.&nbsp; The Hotel St. Nicholas was by no means a financial success, and Nicolo sold the building just over 10 years after purchasing it.&nbsp; It was renamed to Ambassador Apartments during the process of this sale.



The buyers, Max Myers and Samuel Gross of Ambassador Realty Company, purchased and operated the apartment complex from 1925 until 1953, at which point it was sold again to the Gateway Company, who began the first major renovation since the post-fire repairs decades earlier.&nbsp; The Gateway Company sold the building again a few years later for two-hundred thousand more than they purchased it for. The buyer of the Ambassador Apartments was Aetna Insurance Group, who undertook a massive renovation project.&nbsp; Over the years between the 50s and the 70s, the Ambassador Apartments (and Asylum Hill in general) had declined in popularity and maintenance, Aetna’s renovations, largely for use by employees relocating to Hartford, are the most immediately visible interior features of the Ambassador Apartments building as of now.&nbsp; Though Aetna no longer owns the building, the company’s impact on it is undeniable.The Ambassador Apartments provide a unique insight into the changing standards of urban housing in New England over the course of a century while granting concrete evidence of the economic, demographic, and even aesthetic changes of Hartford across so many years.&nbsp; Because of this, it is a foundational building in the Asylum Hill District of the city.

Hartford's Ambassador Apartments building was designed as an “H-shaped” apartment building and constructed in phases between 1917 and 1921. The building was designed in the Italian Renaissance style by Hartford by Berenson and Moses, a Hartford architectural firm.  With carved and painted brick with ornate stone flourishes, the Ambassador Apartments building represents one of the best-preserved examples of Italian Renaissance design in the city. 

The Ambassador Apartments

After Twain and his wife married in 1870, the pair along with their infant son Langdon, moved to the city of Hartford, Connecticut, in which they had already visited several years prior to meet with his publisher Elisha Bliss. For the first few years, the family rented a home in the heart of Nook Farm, a popular area that was home to various writers and publishers. Sadly in 1871, their son passed away from diphtheria. However, that same year, their daughter Susy was born. After several years of renting, Twain and Livy hired architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to commission a house on a lot at Farmington Avenue. Construction began in 1873 and due to the Clemens family frequently traveling, Potter had relatively free reign over the project. The High Victorian Gothic-style house was complete in 1874 and was home to the Clemens family for the next 17 years, although much of the interior work was incomplete. During this time, Livy gave birth to two daughters, Clara and Jean, completing a family of five and it was in these years that Sam published some of his most famous works. In total, the Clemens spent about $40,000 to $45,000 to build their home. The house measures 11,500 square feet and withholds a total of 25 rooms throughout three floors. The house contained seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, even including a library, a drawing room, and a billiard room. While Potter designed it, Twain and Livy had previously made sketches for how they wanted the room layouts to be, also supervising the construction themselves. Several elements ended up being changed by Twain. For example, a patch of tin was placed on the roof so that Twain could hear the rain pattering. The dining room fireplace was constructed with a divided flue that rose on each side of a window so he could watch the snow fall. Twain liked to keep updated on new technologies, so the house boasted one of the first telephones in a private home, flush toilets, central heating, hot and cold running water, and a speaking tube intercom system. Most of the interior was inspired and designed from Oriental, Turkish, and Indian styles along with designs from Native American flowers and plants. Because of the intricacy and uniqueness of the structural design, the building ended up being more expensive than predicted. Although Twain experienced literary success during his years in Hartford, he had several major financial setbacks in the 1890s as he continuously made bad investments, usually related to new and untested inventions. These decisions led him to file for bankruptcy, and soon the house became too expensive to maintain. In an effort to spend less and pay back his debts, Twain relocated his family temporarily to Europe in 1891. After the failure of his publishing company in 1894, Twain set out on a lecture tour to earn an income.Even after becoming financially stable again, tragedy struck as the youngest daughter Jean was diagnosed with epilepsy in 1896, along with his 24-year-old daughter Susy dying of spinal meningitis while on a visit to the Hartford home. Twain could not bear to live in the house where she passed, so the family never lived in the house again and finally sold it to the Richard Bissell family in 1903. After its purchase, the building changed owners several times.Richard Bissell was an insurance executive who later served as the president of THe Hartford for several years. He and his wife Mary had three children who grew up in the house. Their son Richard M. Bissell Jr. grew up to become a high-ranking CIA executive during the Cold War who was an important individual in the development of the U-2 spy plane and later was appointed as Deputy Director for Plans in 1959. He spent the first 8 years of his life in the Twain house before Bissell Sr. leased the house the Kingswood School for boys, which Bissell Jr. attended in 1920. However, there was a stipulation in the sale that allowed the school to remain there until 1922. The home was then sold to a developer who had plans to turn it into an apartment building, but after backlash from the public, the interior was divided into 11 apartment units. In 1929, it was purchased again by the Friends of Hartford who intended to demolish the building, but a group called The Mark Twain Memorial and Library Commission was created which acquired the home back and set out to save and restore the property to its original appearance. The restoration of the home began much later, and the organization rented out the first floor of the house to The Mark Twain Branch of the Hartford Public Library. The rest of the home was rented as private apartments through the 1960s.In 1963, The Mark Twain House was designated as a National Historic Landmark and thus formal restoration began. The main goal of the project was to bring the property back to its original state before the tenants after the Clemens family moved in. The project began with the billiard room and continued with much research and physical investigation with the rest of the house. All major rooms of the house were completed and opened in time for the 100th anniversary in 1974. In 2003, the museum center was finally opened, and the organization was renamed The Mark Twain House &amp; Museum, the new building being the first LEED certified “green” museum in the United States. Restoration of the interior continued up until 2005, and today the entire house is open to the public for tours. Mark Twain will forever remain as one of the most influential literary figures of the 19th century. While his house has gone through several transformations, it now stands as a remembrance for his legacy and erudite work. Currently, anyone can buy tickets online. The house includes a gift shop and a small café for visitors to enjoy, as well as a new exhibition of 90 objects from the original house and founding organization.

The Mark Twain House &amp; Museum is a National Historic Landmark and the former home of one of the most celebrated authors in American history, Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain (1835-1910). Twain and his family lived in the building from 1870 to 1891. In addition to publishing books, Twain was a journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur, and inventor known for his complex humor and memorable characters. Much of his work explored societal issues related to poverty and class stratification. Twain wrote many of his most important works while living here, including classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). The former home served as a school before being remodeled to apartments, but thanks to Twain's fame and the continued interest of the reading public, the former home was restored and reopened as a museum that offers exhibits, events, and tours along with educational programs that allow visitors to learn about Twain’s life and literary legacy.

The Mark Twain House & Museum

Harriet Beecher was born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. One of eleven siblings, she showed early literary interest and took part in lively debates with her siblings. She received formal education at Sarah Pierce's Academy. Later, Harriet would study and eventually teach at the Hartford Female Seminary, founded by her sister, Catherine. At age 21, Harriet Beecher moved with her family to Cincinnati, Ohio as her father had been appointed President of Lane Theological Seminary. Here, she met and married Professor Calvin Stowe. In her adult life, Beecher Stowe would spend time living in Maine and Florida, before settling in Hartford, Connecticut. Although she is most well known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe wrote thirty novels in her lifetime, along with several short stories, poems, and songs. The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is a "nontraditional" museum, where visitors are encouraged to interact with their tour guides. The Center also offers a virtual 40-minute program for school groups.

This National Historic Landmark was the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, for the last 23 years of her life. 

The house is part of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center which preserves the house and center's collections. The research library includes letters and documents from the family. The house includes original items from the family. In addition to the Stowe House, the historic site includes an 1873 carriage house (the visitor's center) and the Katharine Seymour Day House (1884).

Harriet Beecher Stowe House and Center, Hartford

An earlier house on this same&nbsp;site burnt down in 1870. The Reverend Nathaniel J. Burton, pastor of the
Fourth Congregational Church, and his wife, Rachel, rented this earlier&nbsp;house for many
years. Some claim that the Burton House is named after
the Rev. Burton, but this is not true. He died in 1887, which was probably before the house was constructed. Rev. Burton’s son, Richard Burton, a literary
critic for the newspaper The Hartford Courant, lived in the house at one point, and it was
after him that the house was named. In 1853, two men, John Hooker and Francis
Gillette, mortgaged Imlay farm from Connecticut Mutual Life
Insurance Company. The land included the location of the present property. The two men established Nook Farm, which attracted
their friends, including a number of distinguished people: the feminist
Isabella Beecher, the novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe, editor Charles Dudley Warner, Samuel
Clemens (aka, Mark Twain) and the Hepburn family,&nbsp;one daughter of which, Katherine,
became the famous movie actress. However, Nook Farm was not a financial success. To satisfy the mortgage holder, Connecticut
Mutual, instead of a payment of money, Hooker and Gillette deeded to the insurance company the small piece of land on which 36 Forest Street now exists. The insurance company in turn re-sold the land
to A. Lyman Williston, who constructed the current house on the property. By 1909, the house and property were owned by an
insurance executive named Charles Starkweather – no relation, apparently, to the
infamous “thrill killer” of the 1950s. According to the NRHP nomination&nbsp;form: “Its gambrel roof, overhanging
stories and broad veranda are all distinctive characteristics of the Shingle
Style.” Each story forms an overhang to the one below, and
each overhang is set off with a row of small dentils, so that the wood shingle sheathing
never becomes one solid sheet. On the end walls, the overhanging gambrel roof
is ornamented with large, scroll brackets with beaded molding.&nbsp;The classical "Queen Anne" style is most apparent in a rectangular&nbsp;oriel&nbsp;projecting at the second story of the north wall. The house is now a private multifamily dwelling, easily viewed from the street.

The Burton House, also known as the 36 Forest Street House, is a Shingle-style building in the Queen Anne architectural style, constructed circa 1885 (some claim 1895). It is a two-and-a-half-story house with a brick foundation. According to its National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) nominating form, it is “a substantial Shingle Style house whose classical detailing enhances its urbanity.” 

It is historically connected to the Nook Farm literary circle in the 19th Century, which included authors Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain and others. It is the only 19th Century house surviving on Forest Street, an area that was known for its elegant, spacious houses. (A 19th Century horse-drawn carriage appears on the lawn of the present-day house.) 

The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. 



Burton House (aka 36 Forest Street House)

The historic house served as the home to John Hooker, a successful lawyer, an active abolitionist, and son of Hartford's founder, Thomas Hooker; and his wife Isabella Beecher-Hooker, a women's rights activist and sister to Harriet Beecher-Stowe. The couple bought the land in 1851 and then built the house in 1853. The home stood on what became "Nook Farm," a nineteenth-century literary and intellectual enclave that included the homes of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe.&nbsp; The neighborhood that became Nook Hill grew out of a slightly earlier neighborhood
known as Asylum Hill because it was the site of the American Asylum for the
Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb, which was built in 1821. The area
surrounding the asylum gradually began to emerge as a residential district as downtown
Hartford became increasingly crowded. As downtown Hartford was transformed by
an influx of immigrants, the Asylum Hill neighborhood became an enclave of the
upper middle class and very wealthy, many of whom were prominent in the
business and social life of the city.&nbsp;

In 1851, John Hooker and Francis Gillette, who were brothers-in-law,
bought a 100-acre parcel of the Asylum Hill district known as Imlay Farm. At
the time, the area was largely pasture and woodland bordered by Farmington
Avenue, Sigourney Street, and the Park River. &nbsp;Both men built homes for themselves then sold parcels
to family members and friends, who proceeded to build their own homes. Many of
the early residents of Nook Farm were connected to each by family ties or
friendship, and it became an unusually close-knit neighborhood of like-minded
individuals.&nbsp;

John and Isabella Beecher Hooker built their home at the corner of
Forest and Hawthorn Streets. Hooker was an attorney and his wife, daughter of
famed minister Lyman Beecher and sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, was a
well-known suffragist. The Hooker home, built in 1853, is an expansive Gothic
style house that would be expanded over the years by subsequent owners. Many of
the later homes built in Nook Farm were influenced by the Hooker home in style
and/or size.&nbsp;

The early connection with the Hooker and Beecher families helped
establish Nook Farm as a desirable neighborhood for Hartford’s most educated
and affluent families. In time, it also became known around the world as a
literary and politically active community. Harriet Beecher Stowe moved to Nook
Farm in 1863 and Mark Twain built an elaborate home on the same street as Stowe
in 1874, where he would live for much of the rest of his life. Stories abound
of the residents of Nook Farm wandering in and out of each other’s yards and
homes, with trails connecting the back yards.&nbsp;

Many of Nook Farm’s residents were ahead of their time, with
progressive ideas regarding women’s rights and abolitionism, and the community
also gained a reputation for forward-thinking, open-minded people. The
Spiritualist movement, which rested on the belief that the dead can communicate
with the living, had a number of adherents in Nook Farm, notably Isabella
Beecher Hooker and Mark Twain.&nbsp;Isabella Beecher married John Hooker at the age of nineteen. She often accompanied her husband to his law firm where he read passages from William Blackstone to her. One passage in particular profoundly troubled Isabella: It stated that a married woman forfeited their legal standing once married because they were defined as one person under the law with their husband. The notion that marriage ultimately suspended a woman's legal status pushed Isabella Beecher Hooker to dedicate her life’s work to the enfranchisement and empowerment of women.&nbsp;Isabella, along with her older half-sisters,&nbsp; Catherine and the lauded author Harriet Beecher-Stowe became heavily involved in the cause of women’s suffrage, often crossing paths with other noted activists such as Susan B. Anthony. Isabella founded the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and served as its director until 1905. She also organized and funded a suffrage convention in Washington, D.C. intended to function as a formal protest to Congress. In addition to lobbying the U.S. Congress for a woman's right to vote, she spent seven years in Connecticut fighting for a woman's right to own property; the state legislature finally passed the bill 1877.&nbsp;Meanwhile, John Hooker was an active abolitionist, organizing the anti-slavery, liberty convention in 1846 and serving as the president of the Hartford's anti-slavery committee, which published a newspaper titled The Charter Oak. Moreover, he helped Reverend James W.C. Pennington obtain his freedom from slavery by paying Pennington's Maryland slave owner $150.&nbsp;

Nook Farm’s best days were over by the 1890s. Harriet Beecher Stowe
died in 1896, and her neighbor, Mark Twain, left a few years earlier, driven
away from his grand home by bad business decisions and personal tragedies. The
paving of Farmington Avenue in 1899 led to the transformation of the park-like neighborhood
into a more urban neighborhood, with more businesses and increased traffic.&nbsp;

Hartford’s population grew increasingly large in the early twentieth
century, and numerous businesses and insurance companies moved their offices to
the Nook Hill neighborhood. Apartment buildings were built (the Hooker home is
partially obscured by an apartment block built in the 1950s), and gradually,
many of the grand homes of the nineteenth century were demolished.&nbsp;

Some of the most historically significant homes remain, however, such
as the Hooker home, the Twain house (now a museum) and the Stowe house (now the
Harriet Beecher Stowe Center). All three homes—as well as numerous others in
the neighborhood—are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as is
the district as a whole.

For a time in the 1800s, Hartford’s Nook Farm neighborhood was a hive of literary and reform activity. The neighborhood attracted well-educated and open-minded people from around the country, most notably Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The neighborhood began when John Hooker and Francis Gillette bought the 100-acre Imlay Farm, they named Nook Farm because of its location along a bend in the Park River. The home that Hooker built for himself and his wife, Isabella Beecher Hooker, was the first home in the new neighborhood. Both the neighborhood and the Hooker home are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

West Hartford Connecticut Walking Tour

Connecticut Historical Society

Introduction

Images

Sources

Additional Information