Looking east on Talcott Street from Main Street, on April 22, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.
Talcott Street in 2016:
This first photo was taken just a block away from and on the same day as the one in the previous post, and it shows Talcott Street facing down the hill toward Market Street, where a photo in another earlier post was taken. As mentioned in that post, the buildings that dominate the present-day scene were originally the home of the Hartford-based G. Fox department store. The company was located here when the first photo was taken, in a much smaller building just out of view to the right. The one-story building on the right side of the first photo was a Woolworth store, and on the left side was the North Baptist Church.
Just over 10 years after the first photo was taken, the G. Fox building burned down, along with the neighboring Woolworth building. Based on the photos here, it appears that the section of the building along the Talcott Street side was preserved and incorporated into a new Woolworth building, but G. Fox completely rebuilt, opening the present-day building in 1918. The facility was later expanded to include a warehouse on the left side of Talcott Street and a bridge connecting the two buildings. At some point, the North Baptist Church building was also demolished, and is now a parking lot.
As for G. Fox, the company was a major Hartford retailer for nearly 150 years, before closing in 1993. Their former building here has since been converted into the Capital Community College, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as one of several historic department store buildings still standing in downtown Hartford.
Hello, this is John D’Amanda, a descendant of Philo Talcott, living in Rochester, New York. Philo moved in with his daughter Carrie and son in law, Edmund Lyon, at 1441 East Avenue, Rochester, NY, where he died in 1934. He is buried in the Lyon plot, Riverside Cemetery, Rochester. In the 1850’s he ran a dry goods store next door to the North Baptist Church, which I’m assuming is the Woolworth building in your 1916 picture. Philo is my great great grandfather. Thanks for sharing this picture. John.
I’m a descendant of John Steel(e), one of the founders of Hartford (Doug Steele). According to my family lore and at least one book, he was the leader of the Adventurer’s Party that was sent by Thomas Hooker in October 1635 to prepare the way for the 100 families that would follow later that spring in 1636. John Talcott was his father-in-law (Rachel Talcott) and accompanied the expedition. Is this street named after him? It seems so, based on where his farm was located in the classic 1640 map of Hartford. I am interested in learning anything about the Talcott’s, Steele’s, Skinner’s, Warner’s and Judd’s in the early years of Hartford. I’m a descendant of all of them.