See the sites!

We’ve used the information here to create walking tours of the neighborhood:
Guided tours: our tour guides highlight things about Asylum Hill that they know and that interests them.
These tours are designed that you can take them on your own, with your smartphone as your guide if
you want to take a walk or on your desktop if you want to take them from the comfort of your home or
office.
Create your own tour: want to see sites related to the insurance companies? Or related to inventors or
politicians? Or 19 th century brick architecture that faces south? We’ve curated our tour stops so that
you can build a tour around your own interests. Is there something that interests you that we’ve
missed? Drop us a line, and we’ll try to build it for you.
Want a tour in the real world? We do organize walking tours, and we’d be more than happy to put you
on our e-mailing list if you’d like to hear from us when we schedule them. We’re also happy to give
private tours.

Who, what, where, when – but not why

Our goal is to present information on Asylum Hill’s neighborhood – not to explain it.

Who: mostly we work with the dead – but we hope as this site expands that we will be able to include
living history as well.

What: basically, if it made the newspaper, we’ll include it, and we supplement this information with
secondary sources as available.

Where: we hope to have an address for every place we mention, but unfortunately, not every place we
mention is still standing. And just to make it more complicated, the City of Hartford seems to have
changed its street numbers at some point in either the 1870s or the 1890s.

When: we’re focused on things that we can put down on the calendar. You can look at the history of
the whole neighborhood as it unfolds, or you can also check out events as they relate specifically to
people and places

But the temptation is strong, and we are weak

The history does occasionally make us wonder, so we do curate.
Connections: as we can, we will connect people and places to each other.

Topics: we organize related events, typically as they pertain to people and places, although we will give
a topic its own page if it’s a hefty one.

It’s true – it’s a fact!

We’ve striven to verify and to confirm all of the information we have on this site, and we will note those instances in which we’ve found contradictory information. And to this end, we welcome any information you might have and be willing to share.

But what is history?

Did you or someone you know live or work in Asylum Hill?
Do you have old photos or other historic artifacts that you’d be willing to share?
Has your own research uncovered something about Asylum Hill?
We’re looking to be as granular and hyperlocal as possible – our site is “microhistory” – and we’d love to
include you and yours here. But fair warning: we are very strong believers in public history, which is to
say that if it’s on our site we want to share it as widely and broadly as possible.

Mistakes? Sure, we’ve made a few

Wrong dates, wrong addresses, typos, other errors – you name it, it’s in here! We appreciate any and all
efforts to help us correct our mistakes.

The more we know

We’re expanding this site all the time, both with new information and with new features, and we’re
keeping track of that as we go.

Comments, questions, concerns, corrections, criticisms?

Let us know!

16

People

28

Places

317

Events

3

Tours

See More
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