The high gilded dome of the Capitol at Hartford and the broad fronts
of the stately buildings of Trinity College surmounting Rocky Hill,
above a labyrinth of factories, are seen rising on the Connecticut
River bank to the northward. This is the noted city, with about
seventy thousand people, which has reproduced in New England the name
in the mother country of the ancient Saxon village just north of
London at the "Ford of Harts," whence some of its early settlers came.
The brave and pious Thomas Hooker led his flock from the seacoast
through the wilderness in 1636 to Hartford, to establish an English
colony at the Indian post of Suckiang, the Dutch three years before
having built a fort and trading-station at a bend of the Connecticut,
where the little Park River flowing in gave a water-power which
turned the wheels of a small grist-mill, to which all the country
around afterwards brought grain to be ground. Cotton Mather, the
quaint historian, described Hooker as "the renowned minister of
Hartford and pillar of Connecticut, and the light of the Western
churches." Hartford is known as the "Queen City," and its centre is
the attractive Bushnell Park, fronting on the narrow and winding Park
River. An airy bridge leads from the railway station over this little
stream, to the tasteful Park entrance, a triumphal brownstone arch
with surmounting conical towers, erected as a memorial to the soldiers
who fell in the Civil War. A grand highway then continues up the hill
to the Connecticut State Capitol, which cost $2,500,000 to build, one
of the finest structures in New England, an imposing Gothic temple of
white marble, three hundred feet long, the dome rising two hundred and
fifty feet, and all the fronts elaborately ornamented with statuary
and artistic decoration. The statue of General Putnam, who died at
Hartford in 1790, is in the Park, and his tombstone, battered and
weatherworn, is kept as a precious relic in the Capitol. The "Putnam
Phalanx" is the great military organization of Hartford. In the east
wing of the Capitol is the bronze statue of Nathan Hale, whom the
British hanged as a spy in the Revolution. It is a masterpiece, the
almost living figure seeming animated with the full vigor of
earnest youth, as with outstretched hands he actually appears to speak
his memorable words: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose
for my country." The Connecticut law-makers of to-day who meet in this
sumptuous Capitol are milder legislators than their ancestors who made
the "blue laws" of the olden time, when the iron rule of the Puritan
pastors governing the colony enacted a Draconian code, inflicting
death penalties for the crimes of idolatry, unchastity, blasphemy,
witchcraft, murder, man-stealing, smiting parents, and some others,
with savage punishment for Sabbath-breaking and the use of tobacco.
[Illustration: _State Capitol, Hartford, Conn._]
The celebrated Charter Oak is the great memory of Hartford. In 1856
the old tree was blown down in a storm, and a marble slab marks where
it stood. The remains of the tree were fashioned into many precious
relics, and our friend of humorous memory, Mark Twain, who lives in
Hartford, says he has seen all conceivable articles made out of this
precious timber, there being, among others, "a walking-stick,
dog-collar, needle-case, three-legged stool, bootjack, dinner-table,
tenpin alley, toothpick, and enough Charter Oak to build a plank-road
from Hartford to Great Salt Lake City." This ancient tree concealed
the royal charter of the Connecticut colony, granted by the King,
when, in 1687, the tyrannical Governor Andros came to Hartford with
his troops and demanded its surrender. While the subject was being
discussed in the Legislature, the lights were suddenly put out, and in
the darkness a bold colonist seized the precious document, and running
out, concealed it in the hollow of the oak. The fine statue
surmounting the Capitol dome and overlooking the city is now, with
extended arm, crowning the municipality with a wreath of Charter Oak
leaves, and the oak leaf is repeated in many ways in the decoration of
the Capitol and of many other buildings in the city. The Charter Oak
Bank and Life Insurance Company are also flourishing institutions. In
proportion to population, Hartford is regarded as the wealthiest city
in America, and it is financially great, particularly in Life and Fire
Insurance Companies, whose business is wide-spread. It has many
charitable foundations, book-publishing houses, banks, manufacturing
establishments and educational institutions, the most noted of the
latter being Trinity College, in the southern part of the city, its
brownstone Early English buildings having a grand view across the
intervening valley to the hills of Farmington and Talcott Mountain,
nine miles westward.
Picturesque suburbs adorned by magnificent villas environ the built-up
parts of Hartford, making a splendid semi-rural residential section,
where arching elms embower the lawn-bordered avenues, many localities
being adorned by superb hedges. There is a fine artistic and
historical collection in the Wadsworth Atheneum, where, among other
precious relics, are kept General Putnam's sword and the Indian King
Philip's club. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mrs. Sigourney, the
poetess, were long residents of Hartford. The citizen whom it holds in
steadfast memory, however, is Colonel Samuel Colt, who invented the
revolving pistol. He was born in Hartford, and his remains rest under
a fine monument in Cedar Hill Cemetery. His widow built as his
memorial a beautiful little brownstone chapel, the Church of the Good
Shepherd, which is not far away from the huge works of the Colt Arms
Company, the chief industrial establishment of the city. Colt, when a
boy, ran away from home and went to sea, and is said to have there
conceived the idea of his great invention. He sought vainly during
several years to establish a factory to make it, but did not prosper
until 1852, when he started in Hartford; and with the great demand for
small-arms then stimulated by the opening of the California gold mines
and the exploration of the Western plains, afterwards expanded by the
Civil War, his factory grew enormously. The heraldic "colt rampant"
adopted by the inventor is stamped on all the arms and reproduced in
all the decorations of these vast works. Among other large factories
is also the Pope bicycle works. A short distance west of Hartford is
New Britain, where there are twenty thousand people engaged in making
hardware, locks and jewelry, its noted resident having been Elihu
Burritt, the "Learned Blacksmith," who was born there in 1810 and died
in 1879.