Plans for the new offices of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company finally settled

1.  According the Courant, Hartford Fire employed 800 people.

2.  The new building would include the following amenities for employees:

• Locker rooms
• Washrooms
• Recreation rooms
• Infirmary with a trained nurse
• A salaried welfare worker who will spend “all his time in the interests of the employees.”
• Athletic fields

These plans were not yet finalized.

3.  According the article, every change in the design of the building had been “an improvement.”

4.  The Courant reporter felt the design had “no exact precedent” but saw similarities with the Massachusetts State House (portico) and the Columbia University Library (dome).

The article does not say exactly when officials of Hartford Fire Insurance Company finally agreed on the final design for the new building, but the Courant was able to publish a rendering of the building that included two trees that would be cut down.  That places approval of the designs between September 30, when the company decided to move the building site 20 feet farther back from the street, and yesterday, December 20, the reporter’s likely deadline.

The Courant reported on one meeting between Richard Bissell and the architects on September 24, 1919.

The Courant editorialized about Hartford Fire’s new location in the same edition.

The majority of the article gave a history of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company.  Some random bits of trivia:

• The company was chartered by the State Legislature in 1810.
• The company had its first loss in 1812, totaling $112.10, which would be just over $2,500 today.
• The company’s first agent was Ebenezer F. Norton of Canandaigua, NY.
• Eliphalet Terry and James Bolles personally went to New York City to pay claims following the Great Fire of 1835. They paid claims totaling $64,973.84, which would be almost $2.2 million today.
• As of the date of this article, the original record book of the company was still in use.

Some of the reporter’s opinion on the design:

• “It is thoroughly and severely colonial.”
• “It is fortunate that such a building will have the natural setting that has been chosen for it. ‘More to be desired than gold –‘.  In fact, gold could not buy the fine old trees now on the site for the new building and which are being preserved with the utmost care and little expense.”
• “These trees, with additional shrubbery and close cling vines will soften the severe lines of the building, enhancing its beauty as only nature can, the curving driveway adding a touch of majesty to the whole.”
• “Genuine colonial thrift is evident in the fact that only one passenger and one freight elevator will be required the building, the three stories and basement necessitating only three flights of stairs.”
• “Conditions for employees during working hours will be ideal.”

1. Eliphalet Terry was president of Hartford Fire.
2. James Bolles was the secretary of Hartford Fire.

Unattributed, “How Hartford Fire Insurance Company has grown,” Hartford Courant, December 21, 1919, page X1.