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Neighborhood Walking Tours
Woodland Street Stroll
This stroll will take you back in time, to a point when Woodland Street was considered Hartford’s West End. It’s a story of Goodwins and Morgans, of two bishops and a senior pastor, and of influence on some of Hartford’s most enduring institutions. The tour will introduce you to some of these people and provide some insight into how Woodland Street became the street that it is today. You’re welcome to start the tour at any point, but we recommend that you begin at the Classical Magnet School, then head north to Woodland Drive where you’ll cross to the other side of the street, then south to Farmington Avenue, and then back up the western side of the street to Classical Magnet.
1
The Goodwin Castle - and James & James Junius Goodwin
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83 Woodland Street was the site of the Goodwin Castle and several notable Goodwins.
James Goodwin was born in Hartford in 1803 at his family’s home, the Goodwin Tavern, at the corner of Albany Avenue and Irving Street. The tavern was a stop on the stagecoach line between Hartford and Albany, and it led to James’s first job at the Morgan Tavern, itself a stop on the stagecoach line between New York and Boston. Morgan’s Tavern was run by Joseph Morgan, whose son was Junius Morgan and grandson was J. Pierpont Morgan. Joseph’s daughter Lucy married James Goodwin. James eventually became an agent for the line and then its proprietor, and he would come to control the lucrative postal contracts for Connecticut. James correctly guessed that the railroads would put him out of business, and between 1835 and 1840 he completely divested himself from his stagecoach business. He did some farming on Farmington Avenue, he got involved in insurance as president of Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company and a director of Hartford Fire Insurance Company, he bought a lot of real estate, and in 1872 he began construction of his new home here, at the corner of Woodland Street and Asylum Avenue – the Goodwin Castle.
The Goodwin Castle was considered the largest house built in Hartford at the time, and as it was under construction it became something of a local attraction, with people walking around the interior of the house, a construction site, at their leisure. Finished in 1873, the house cost $400,000 to build, almost $10.5 million today. Goodwin lived in the house until his death in 1878.
James Junius Goodwin was James Goodwin’s son. He left Hartford in 1859 to find his way in business, and entered a business partnership with his cousin, J. P. Morgan. That business became Drexel Morgan & Company, the predecessor of JPMorgan Chase. James Junius retired from active business in 1871, and returned to Hartford following the death of his father in 1878. He formed a partnership with his brother Francis to manage his father’s extensive real estate holdings, and he lived here in the Goodwin Castle until his death in 1915.
At some point after James Junius Goodwin’s death, the family sold the Goodwin Castle to the Aetna Fire Insurance Company, with the stipulation that James Junius’s wife, Josephine, would be allowed to use the Castle until her death. She maintained the Castle mostly as her summer residence until her death in 1939, at which point Aetna Fire finally took title – but by then they had bought an office building downtown, so they had no real need for the Castle at that point. The house was demolished in May 1940. The parlor, however, survives in the Wadsworth Atheneum (Josephine’s nephew, Charles A. Goodwin, was on the board of the Atheneum at this time). The site was not occupied again until 1956, when the current building, now the Classical Magnet School, was constructed for the Factory Insurance Association.
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Walk north along the west side of Woodland two buildings to the Family Medicine Center at Asylum Hill.
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2
Francis Goodwin
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Francis Goodwin was a businessman, an Episcopal minister, and the largest taxpayer in Hartford, a title he inherited from his father James. He played a prominent role in the establishment of Hartford’s public parks and in the growth of the Wadsworth Atheneum. He lived here at 103 Woodland Street until his death in 1923.
Francis was born in 1839 in Hartford at the Goodwin family home at the corner of Pearl and Lewis Streets downtown. After working for three years in business, including in New York City, he began to study for the ministry, eventually entering Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut. In 1865, he became rector of Trinity Episcopal Church on Sigourney Street, a position he held for five years until 1871. When his father died in 1878, Francis and his brother James formed managed their father’s vast real estate holdings, the Goodwin Estate. This included much of the western part of Hartford, and the Courant, at that time, valued them at anywhere between $2,000,000 and $4,000,000. That work took up the majority of Francis’s time.
As a member of the Hartford Board of Park Commissioners, he helped to create several Hartford parks, including Keney, Pope, Elizabeth, and Colt Parks. It helped that Walter Keney was Francis’s uncle. The city later purchased the land for Goodwin Park, which the Parks Board named in his honor.
As president of the board of trustees of the Wadsworth, Francis helped secure funding for the Morgan Memorial from J. Pierpont Morgan – and here it helped that J. P. Morgan was Francis’s cousin. And another quick note: the Colt Memorial section of the Wadsworth was designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris, who was Francis’s son-in-law.
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Continue along the sidewalk to the parking garage and stop near -- but not on! -- the driveway at the north end of the garage.
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3
Joseph H. Twichell
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125 Woodland Street. Joseph H. Twichell was the first senior pastor at Asylum Hill Congregational Church, a position he held for 46 years, from 1865 to 1911. He remains Asylum Hill Congregational Church’s longest serving senior pastor. He’s probably best known locally for his friendship with Samuel Clemens, with whom he would frequently travel to the top of Talcott Mountain, to a spot nearby the Heublein Tower, which you might be able to see in the distance in the west. Joseph and his family – his wife Harmony and their nine children, as well as his sister and his nephew after his brother-in-law died – lived in the house that used to stand at 125 Woodland Street. Initially they rented the house, but in 1888 the members of Asylum Hill Congregational Church bought the house and presented to Joseph on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. Joseph died in 1918, and Saint Francis Hospital demolished the house in 1970.
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Head up Woodland Street to the traffic light at Woodland Drive. Cross over to the east side at the crosswalk -- the alley to your north is the next stop.
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4
Austin Organs
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156 Woodland Street is the home of Austin Organs. The company was formed in Boston in 1898, and relocated the following year to Hartford, after a group of local businessmen urged John T. Austin to do so. Its factory was originally located at 158 Woodland Street, but the company sold this factory when it liquidated its assets in 1935, due to a downturn in business stemming from the Great Depression and from talking movies, which made movie theater organs obsolete. The company re-formed in 1937 as Austin Organs Inc., and bought the factory at 156 Woodland Street, which is down the alley to the right of 158 Woodland Street. Austin Organs remains there today.
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Head south on the east side of Woodland and cross Sargeant Street at the light. The next stop is about one-quarter down the next block.
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5
Melvin H. Hapgood
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Melvin H. Hapgood lived at 142 Woodland Street, which, according to an 1896 atlas, was called “Wild Acre.” Hapgood was a prominent and prolific Hartford architect during the 1880s and 1890s. Born in Minnesota in 1859, Melvin grew up in Boston, and he moved to Hartford in 1882. He went to work for John C. Mead, one of the most prominent architects and builders in Hartford at the time, and he trained as an architect under Mead. He then formed a business partnership with Charles C. Cook, and they were later joined by Melvin’s cousin, Edward Hapgood. After their business grew, Cook and the Hapgoods split the business, with Cook taking on the construction projects and the Hapgoods forming a architectural firm of Hapgood & Hapgood. Among Hapgood’s numerous commissions, including 22 Woodland Street, just down the street, which is now the Town & County Club. Melvin owned the rest of the block south to Ashley and then two lots east onto Ashley, all formerly the Old Town Farm subdivision. He died in 1899 of cancer at the age of 40, leaving his wife Mary and their four children, all under the age of 10.
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Continue down the east side of Woodland and cross Ashley Street at the light. The next stop is at the corner.
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6
Edward M. Gallaudet
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128 Woodland Street was the home of Edward M. Gallaudet, an important educator for the deaf. Edward was born in Hartford in 1837, the son of Thomas H. Gallaudet, the first principal at the American School for the Deaf. Edward attended Trinity College and taught at the American School for the Deaf until 1857, when he became head of a school for the deaf in Washington, DC. Edward expanded that school into Gallaudet College, and later served as Gallaudet College’s first president, until 1910. He then retired to Hartford and moved here into 128 Woodland Street, into a house he had built earlier by 1896. He lived there until his death in 1917. He was also a renowned expert on international law, and wrote a standard college textbook on the subject. Saint Francis Hospital later used this house as a home for nurses, and it was demolished in the 1940s in order to make way for an addition built onto the Dillon Memorial.
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The next stop is the building that is there now, from the corner down to the pedestrian bridge.
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7
Bishop McAuliffe Memorial Lying-in Pavilion
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The Bishop McAuliffe Memorial Lying-in Pavilion is the building just north of the Dillon Memorial. Although plans were drawn up as early as 1944, the building here today wasn’t built until the late 1940s. It was dedicated in memory Maurice F. McAuliffe, who had served as Bishop of Hartford from 1934 until his death in 1944. This new building replaced the Dillon Memorial as the hospital’s maternity and children’s wing.
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The next stop is on this block, just south of the pedestrian bridge.
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8
Dillon Memorial & Catherine Dillon
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The Dillon Memorial is at the original 114 Woodland Street. Catherine Dillon gave $350,000 toward the construction of the building, which was named in honor of her brothers Charles and Edward, in 1937. The building was designed by Louis A. Walsh, who had also designed Saint Thomas’s Seminary in Bloomfield and the new nurse’s home at Saint Francis Hospital. Dedicated in 1939, the Dillon Memorial was a new children’s wing, and the first facility in Hartford dedicated exclusively to children. It could accommodate 70 patients and included a medical ward, a surgical ward, and an infants’ ward, including “an infants’ airing balcony.”
Catherine Dillon was described as a leading benefactor of Catholic and public charities in her obituary in the Hartford Courant, but there were no additional details about her life. She apparently sought no acclaim for herself– as noted, the Dillon Memorial is named for her brothers – but despite this, Pope Pius XI awarded her the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice gold cross medal after the Dillon Memorial was completed. The medal is given in honor of extraordinary service to the Catholic Church and to the papacy, and at the time she received it she was the only woman in Connecticut who had been so honored.
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Just a bit further down this block, on the other side of the circular drive.
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9
O’Brien Building & Krapek Comprehensive Women’s Health Center
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The building now at the corner of Collins and Woodland Streets was begun in 1959 and dedicated as the Archbishop Henry J. O’Brien Building in 1961. It housed over 100 beds, and it served as the lobby, admitting office, and emergency room. It also contained an office for the board of directors, a staff library, labs, and a space for medical records. Upon completion, Saint Francis Hospital demolished the original hospital building and former episcopal residence at 108 Woodland Street.
Henry J. O’Brien was Maurice McAuliffe’s successor as bishop. In 1953 Bishop O’Brien became Archbishop O’Brien when the Diocese of Hartford was elevated to an archdiocese. Originally, the building had a large cross on the façade facing Woodland Street, but that has since been removed. The building is now part of the Karl J. Krapek, Sr. Comprehensive Women’s Health Center. Karl served on the hospital’s board of directors for almost 40 years, and he served as president and COO of United Technologies from 1999 through 2002, when he retired.
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At the corner of this block, where the shrubs and the hospital wayfinding is.
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10
Francis McFarland
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The house that used to stand at 108 Woodland Street, at the southeast corner of Collins and Woodland Streets, was the point of origin for Saint Francis Hospital and the Archdiocese of Hartford. The archdiocese was originally established as the Diocese of Hartford in 1843, and it included all of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The first three bishops of Hartford – William Tyler, Bernard O’Reilly, and Francis McFarland – all lived in Providence rather than in Hartford until 1872, when Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Providence. Bishop Francis McFarland purchased 108 Woodland Street in 1871 as his episcopal residence. He then purchased the land along Farmington Avenue – the Morgan farm – for the future Cathedral of Saint Joseph, the Convent of Mount Saint Joseph, and the new episcopal residence. Francis died in 1874, but his successor, Thomas Galberry, would live there upon its completion. In 1897, the house was remodeled as the first building of Saint Francis Hospital. It was quickly expanded, with an addition constructed at the rear of the building and along Collins Street in 1900, just three years later.
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Cross Collins Street at the light -- the next stop is the hospital entrace.
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11
St. Francis Hospital & Medical Center
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114 Woodland Street is the Saint Francis Hospital address, and that street number has moved with changing buildings. Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center Patient Tower was once roughly 98 Woodland Street. This 10-story tower opened in 1996, and it’s the tallest building on the hospital’s campus. It served as the link between the hospital’s older buildings north of Collins Street as well as the former National Fire Insurance Company building on Asylum Avenue, and it took over several functions from the older buildings, including the main lobby and admitting center. In an interesting coincidence to the address, the project was initially projected to cost $114 million when ground was broken on the tower in 1993.
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Stay put -- it's right here, closer to the sidewalk than to the hospital entrance.
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12
Chauncey Brewster
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Chauncey Brewster was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut from 1899 through 1928. He played a role in the designation of Christ Church as a cathedral. Chauncey moved into the house at 98 Woodland Street in 1897, which was the episcopal residence at the time, and he was given life use of the house upon his retirement in 1928. He was still living there in 1939, when National Fire Insurance Company announced their intention to buy 98 Woodland Street and indeed the rest of the block bounded by Woodland, Collins, and Atwood Streets and Asylum Avenue. Chauncey died in the house in 1941, and National Fire acquired the house shortly after his death.
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Head down the street to the next corner of this block.
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13
The 16-acre tract
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The block bounded by Collins Street, Atwood Street, Asylum Avenue, and Woodland Street had been a residential block since the late 1860s, when the block had been owned in its entirety by William Collins and Erastus Collins. The Collinses were a distinguished family who are the namesake of Collins Street, and they were involved in the affairs of Hartford for nearly 80 years. In 1939, it was revealed that the National Fire Insurance Company, which had been located downtown in several buildings on Lewis and Pearl Streets, considered the downtown area too congested and wanted to move to a larger space that could accommodate all of its employees in a single building. The company flirted with moving to West Hartford, but the mayor of Hartford, Thomas Spellacy, persuaded the company to stay in Hartford. The company quickly acquired an option to buy most of the properties on the block, and construction got underway in the early 1940s.
The block was 16 acres, with 24 separate parcels, most with houses. All of these residences were demolished to accommodate the new office building. Mayor Spellacy declared that Hartford should be grateful both to the National Fire Insurance Company and to the residents who were willing to give up their homes for this project. In 1975, Saint Francis Hospital paid $4,250,000 for the property.
The former National Fire Insurance Company building still stands at 1000 Asylum Avenue, set back from the street, and is best viewed on this stroll from the corner of Woodland and Asylum.
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Cross Asylum Avenue at the light, and then head south along the sidewalk. Cross Niles Street at the light, and the next stop is at the corner.
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14
Grace Lutheran Church
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Grace Lutheran Church at 46 Woodland Street was formed by the merger of Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church and Trinity Lutheran Church in 1943. For a time, they worshipped in the Frog Hollow neighborhood, just south of here. In 1945, they acquired this property and hired Bissle & Matz as architects and the May Company as builders. Ground was broken in 1950, and the cornerstone laid. The church was dedicated in January 1951.
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The next stop is the next building down.
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15
Louis R. Cheney
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Louis Richmond Cheney’s house at 40 Woodland Street is now offices for several businesses. Cheney served as mayor of Hartford from 1912 to 1914. He was perhaps best known for having been re-elected in 1914 by 55 votes. He was certified as the winner, but then promptly resigned in favor of his opponent in the election, Joseph Lawler, based on concerns about a failed voting machine that hadn’t recorded votes properly. With his brothers, he founded Cheney Brothers in Manchester, and he was a director of numerous local companies, including Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company. Louis was also a trustee at the American School for the Deaf and the Connecticut Institute for the Blind.
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Head down the sidewalk to the big building.
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16
Gustavus Pierrepont Davis & the Regency Towers
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30 Woodland Street was home to Gustavus Pierrepont Davis, more often known as G. P. Davis. He was a leading physician in Hartford and the one-time medical director at Travelers Insurance Company. The large stained glass window at Trinity Episcopal Church was given by his family in his honor in 1914. In October 1963, Harry Gampel announced that he would build the Regency Towers at this site. Construction was completed in June 1965, and the units converted to condominiums in 1981. Meanwhile, Gampel donated $1 million toward the construction of the Gampel Pavilion on the campus of the University of Connecticut at Storrs. Go Huskies!
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Continue down the sidewalk to the next building.
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17
Theodore Lyman and the Town & County Club
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Theodore Lyman descended from one of the founders of Hartford. His father Christopher was the largest shareholder in Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and there are reports that Theodore and Christopher funded the bell at Asylum Hill Congregational Church. Theodore studied law in the offices of Charles E. Perkins, and as Christopher’s only heir he would become the largest shareholder in Hartford Fire Insurance Company, as well as a director there. Theodore built the house at 22 Woodland Street in 1895. It was designed by Hapgood & Hapgood, with Melvin doing much of the interior design of the house. Theodore died in 1920, and his wife Laura lived there until her death in 1925. On May 15, 1925, the Town & County Club held its first meeting, and they voted to buy 22 Woodland Street for $80,000. The house formally opened as the Town & County Club on November 3, 1925.
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The church next door -- it's best viewed from the corner with Farmington Avenue.
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18
Immanuel Congregational Church
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Immanuel Congregational Church, at 370 Farmington Avenue, doesn’t have a Woodland Street address, but it’s a prominent building on Woodland – and it’s on land once owned by James Goodwin, who built the Goodwin Castle up the street. The building was designed by Ernest Flagg, and you should see the Tiffany mosaic inside over the altar. The congregation was originally the Pearl Street Congregational Church downtown. In 1899, when they relocated here, they became the Farmington Avenue Congregational Church. In 1914, they merged with the Park Congregational Church, and this new entity became Immanuel Congregational Church. The Park Congregational Church had itself relocated, and its previous location had been Horace Bushnell’s North Congregational Church. Immanuel Congregational Church now has a plaque on its pulpit commemorating Horace Bushnell’s pastorate.
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Cross Woodland Street at the light and then head north on the west side of Woodland Street to The Woodland.
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19
Francis R. Cooley and The Woodland
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31 Woodland Street was the home of Francis R. Cooley, the son of Francis B. Cooley, one of the richest men in Hartford. He was a renown local businessman, an avid outdoorsman, and one of the first people in Hartford to own a car. The Hartford Courant noted that his enthusiasm for his car encouraged many of his friends and associates to buy cars for themselves. In November 1960, the Hartford Zoning Board of Appeals approved the construction of The Woodland, which opened in 1963. Rent for a single-bedroom apartment was then $185 per month. In 1981, The Woodland converted to condominiums, which prompted tenants to rally for legal protections for elderly residents who did not want to be displaced. Thomas Ritter helped to pass those protections into law, and they remain in place today.
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Continue up the sidewalk to the building next door.
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20
Melancthon W. Jacobus
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Now the headquarters of the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System, 39 Woodland was the home of Melancthon Jacobus and Clara May Cooley, the daughter of the very wealthy Francis B. Cooley. They lived next door to Clara’s brother, Francis R. Cooley. Melancthon was a professor at the Hartford Theological Seminary and was dean there from 1903 to 1927. He was a renowned scholar, and he served on the editorial board for the third edition of the Standard Bible Dictionary. He was also president of the board of trustees for Kingswood Country Day School and a trustee of the Wadsworth Atheneum.
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Head up the sidewalk until you reach the point across the street from Niles Street.
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21
Charles E. Perkins
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The house at 49 Woodland Street is now the Wheeler Clinic. Charles E. Perkins built the house in 1865. Charles was a third-generation lawyer in Hartford, working at his father’s firm. He was a founder of Asylum Hill Congregational Church, and Harriet Beecher Stowe was his aunt. Charles served briefly in Connecticut’s House of Representatives. During his term there, the legislature decided to make Hartford the sole capital of Connecticut, but that couldn’t happen until the legislative session opened in New Haven, the other capital of Connecticut. The Hartford delegation designated Charles, who was a Republican, and Charles Chapman, a Democrat, to make their case in New Haven. The two Charleses were instrumental in the passage of the amendment that made Hartford the sole capital. Charles was a member of the Monday Evening Club and friendly with Charles Dudley Warner, Joseph Hawley, Sam Clemens, and Joseph Twichell. The group often gathered at his house. He died in 1917.
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Head next door.
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22
William & Florence Skinner, Samuel P. Avery, and Henry K. W. Welch
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The house that stood at 61 Woodland Street was built for William C. Skinner and his wife Florence. Skinner was twice president of the Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, the second time during World War I. The Skinners built the house in 1901 at a cost of $145,000. Florence, whose father was in business with Walter and Henry Keney, died in 1904. Four years later William sold the house in a transaction that the Hartford Courant described as the most significant sale since the sale of the Mark Twain House. Skinner died in 1922 following a nervous breakdown that was said to have been brought on by his two sons and his son-in-law all serving in Europe in World War I.
The Courant initially reported that Skinner was selling the house to a “New York lady” who would make her home in Hartford. This turned out to be Samuel P. Avery, a prominent New York businessman and philanthropist and a widely known art expert. Avery quickly became active in Hartford, supporting the Connecticut Historical Society and the Hartford Theological Seminary, and funding the Avery Memorial at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Avery died in 1920.
The last owner-occupant of the house was Henry K. W. Welch, a local businessman who was involved with the Hartford Courant. He descended from an early owner of the Connecticut Courant, George Goodwin.
The house was demolished after Henry’s death in 1948. The current building was built by Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, and completed in 1952.
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That's it! This was the last stop on the stroll -- the starting point is just across Asylum Avenue from where you are right now.
