The office of Selectman George Fowler released an update on the Old Town Farm property

1. It had been determined that selling the property “in a lump” would not work “on account of its size and the value of the land.”
2. The plan for the property would:

• Extend Ashley and Sargeant streets from Garden Street to Woodland Street;
• Push Sigourney Street north to Albany Avenue; and
• Create “11,000 front feet” for the building lots along the various street lines.
• The committee believed that the sale of the building lots would happen quickly.

1. The construction of the west wing of the new town farm house was contingent on the sale of the building lots.
2. The old buildings of the Old Town farm would be sold separately from the building lots, and if they did not sell, materials from those buildings would be used in the construction of the new town farm house.

1. The article contains the earliest, so far, description of the Old Tow Farm property: from Collins Street in the south to the Hartford and Connecticut Wester railroad tracks in the north, and from Garden Street in the east to Woodland Street in the west.
2. The article also directly connects the sale of the building lots to the construction of the new town farm.

The article reported that details about the ongoing work of the Old Town Farm Committee had been “learned yesterday at Selectman Fowler’s office.”  The article does not, however, report who gave the Courant the details.

• Fowler was a member of the Old Town Farm Committee in August 1884, and likely he remained a member today.

1. Last summer, in 1884, a “special committee” searching for a property for the new Town Farm had identified an ideal location.
2. A second special committee was then formed in October 1884 to purchase the property.
3. As of February 1885, the east wing of the new town farm house had been completed, and occupied.
4. The Old Town Farm Committee had a map of the property made that included:

• The streets that would run through it;
• The building lots;
• The property’s topography; and
• The sewer lines.

According to the article, the committee had already received several applications for lots as shown on the map.

The committee on the sale of the town farm will meet on September 19, 1885, to discuss grading the property for streets and excavating a sewer line.

“The plan, of which only the briefest outline has been given, seems to be one to secure the greatest benefits to the town, and its practical details are such that it will doubtless be easily carried out.”

Unattributed.  “Selling the town farm,” Hartford Daily Courant, March 27, 1885, page 2.