Work underway on Sigourney Square Park

1. The article identified Shady Hill’s landscape architect only as “Mr. Parker.”
2. The article that “members of the old town farm committee” had commented on the complaint made by Shady Hill Nursery Company, but it did not specify who or how many had commented.

1. On April 5, 1895, the Courant reported that Shady Hill Nursery Company of Boston had received the contract to landscape the park.
2. Melvin Hapgood wrote a letter to Shady Hill regarding the contract.
3. E. L. Beard replied to Hapgood that:

• Shady Hill had spent a “great deal of time and money” preparing their landscape design for the park;
• Their landscape architect had visited Hartford several times in order to consult about the design; and
• Shady Hill had “every reason to suppose” that its plan had been adopted.

Beard added that Shady Hill would take no further action because “it is used to being slighted by commissions of like character.”

4. The Old Town Farm Committee responded that

• Shady Hill had “no reason for complaint”;
• Their landscape architect had been asked to submit a proposal, as has Alex McClunie;
• The committee had preferred McClunie’s proposal; and
• If Shady Hill sent them a bill for their time and effort, “it would be paid, and that is all there was to it.”

According to the article

• McClunie’s plan would landscape the park “in a somewhat different manner” than the proposal submitted by Shady Hill Nursery Company; and
• The park “will soon be transformed into a garden spot for trees and shrubs.”

1. “There seems to have been some misunderstanding as to the contract for laying out Sigourney Square, the plot of land on the old town farm reserved for park purposes by the committee in charge.”
2. Melvin Hapgood, “writing to the Shady Hill Nursery Company in regard to the matter, has received a letter in reply from the president, L. Beard, in which he says that his firm was used in a most unheard of manner by the committee, and that in the judgment of his firm the idea of the square, as proposed, will not be perfected, nor the work property carried out.”

1. On October 28, 1895, the last adjourned town meeting before the consolidation of the Town and City of Hartford will be held, and during this meeting the Old Town Farm Committee will submit its final report.
2. Also on October 28, 1895, the matter of accepting Sigourney Square as a municipal park will go before the Hartford Board of Aldermen and the Hartford Board of Councilmen.

1. J. Alex McClunie was a prominent Hartford florist.
2. Shady Hill Nursery Company was located in Boston, MA.
3. Melvin Hapgood was a local Hartford architect who had built himself a home on two lots of the old town farm property.
4. E. L. Beard was president of the Shady Hill Nursery Company.

Unattributed.  “Sigourney Square contract,” Hartford Courant, May 18, 1895, page 5.