Balf tries to burn down 847 Asylum Avenue

Balf gave “no reason for his conduct except that he was drunk.”

1. The article described 847 Asylum Avenue as “being remodeled,” which indicates that work on the addition to the house was underway.
2. The theft of joiner’s tools also indicates where the workers were in the construction schedule.

The Courant reported that the “injury done to the grounds cannot be repaired for $300.”  The last digit is difficult to read, it could be a 9 instead of a 0, and the implication here is that this amount is the least amount it will cost to re-plant everything, not an actual estimate of the damage done.

1. Linus Plimpton hired a crew to plant a “large number of costly rose bushes and a general variety of lawn shrubs.”
2. “A few days ago,” Balf along with the crew he had been working with, was “paid off and discharged,” as the work was completed.

A large pane of glass at Linus Plimpton’s office in the Batterson Building was broken this evening.

1. Balf’s “depredations” will be discovered tomorrow morning, and police will arrest Balf at his house on South Ann Street.
2. Balf will appear in court on June 25, 1884.

“The scamp will doubtless find himself in state prison very soon.”

1. Balf was not identified beyond this one name and the fact that he had worked as part of a landscaping crew at 847 Asylum Avenue.
2. The police found the joiner’s tools at Balf’s residence.
3. $300 today would be $9,614.36.

Unattributed.  “Unexplained enmity,” Hartford Daily Courant, June 25, 1884, page 2.