The Old Hartford Riverfront

Remembering the days when Hartford was a port city.

My latest video on YouTube is about Hartford’s Lost Riverfront. In the video I quote from several articles published in the Hartford Courant between 1905 and 1908, a period of time when a lot of the built environment of the city’s old riverfront along the now lost Commerce Street was being demolished to create a grand boulevard that would link the new Bulkeley Bridge to the foot of State Street.

First, I read about the old warehouse, built in 1840 at the corner of Commerce and Ferry Streets, where Asa Farwell stored the West Indian rum that he imported. Farwell’s wealth allowed him to build a big house at the corner of Main and Grove Streets. Next, I read about an old building that was erected nearby, at the foot of State Street, about 1835 by Edwin Taylor as a grocery store. It was frequented by the Vanderbilts when they ran steamships to Hartford. The building later became the station of the Valley Railroad when it was built along the river in 1871. To make way for the railroad, another building associated with the old West Indies trade was taken down, the warehouse of Eliphalet and Roderick Terry. After reading a description of how their customers used to sample rum and molasses, I move on to a description of what the foot of the now lost Ferry Street was like when it was a hub for farmers and fishermen, who came to buy and sell there.

I then read about M. W. Chapin, who operated a steamship line to Philadelphia, and about the River House, which was a notable riverside landmark with its rooftop cupola. The quotations are illustrated with numerous historical photographs and prints of these building and the area in general. I have covered some of this material before, but in this video I wanted to cover some of these in the same video and present the newspaper accounts in a more unadulterated form.

If anyone wants to check out my other videos about the riverside in the olden days, I’ll link my other videos here. First, there’s a video which gives the background of how the new Connecticut Boulevard was laid out in the first decade of the twentieth century and how it replaced many buildings along Commerce Street from Morgan Street to State Street. Then there’s a video where I talk about the Terry warehouse, the fish markets and the Philadelphia steamers, and another where I talk more about some of the old houses that were lost, as well as about Asa Farwell’s warehouse and a later East Side bathhouse that’s also now lost.

Also, from a bit further down, I have a trilogy of videos that give the history of Dutch Point, the old shipbuilding area located where the Park (or Hog) River joined the Connecticut River. The first of these gives the early shipbuilding background of Dutch point, the second focuses on the epic log drives down the Connecticut that brough lumber from Maine all the way to Dutch point, and lastly a video about the long vanished Dutch Point power station. If you haven’t watched all of these videos, please consider checking them out and leaving a like and a comment (and of course subscribe and also become a channel member)!