Second Congregational Church, Hartford, Vermont

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The Second Congregational Church in the center of Hartford, around 1903-1910. Image from The Old and the New.

The church in 2018:

The present-day town of Hartford consists of five distinct villages, spread out across nearly 50 square miles of land. During the first half of the 19th century, this village here along the banks of the White River developed into the de facto town center. It was known as White River Village, and in in 1827 the Congregational Society of White River Village—later renamed the Second Congregational Society of Hartford, Vermont—was established here, with the intent of constructing a meeting house here.

This building, which is shown here in these two photos, was completed in late 1828, and it was formally dedicated on January 8, 1829. It was constructed by Jedediah Dana of Lebanon, New Hampshire, with a design that was typical for New England churches of the period, including a tower and belfry above the main entrance. On the interior, the church could seat 400 people, with pews on either side of two aisles, along with a gallery in the rear of the church.

As was often the cases in churches at the time, parishioners purchased their pews. Prices started at $52, a considerable sum for the 1820s, and the more desirable pews carried a premium. Individual families decorated and furnished their pews according to their tastes, and in the early years only pew owners could vote in church meetings, with the voting power determined by the number of pews that the person held. In all, 61 pews were sold when the church was completed, for a total of $3,788.50, which nearly covered the $4,297 that it cost to construct the building.

The church remained in use throughout the 19th century, but by the turn of the 20th century it was in need of a major renovation. This work, which was done in 1902-1903, included converting the gallery into a meeting room, replacing the heating and ventilation systems, installing new carpet and upholstery, and reducing the seating capacity to 300. Both the interior and exterior were also remodeled with Colonial Revival-style features, which were added by local architect Louis S. Newton.

The first photo was taken sometime soon after these renovations were completed. Since then, very little has changed here on the exterior. Aside from the lack of shutters in the present-day view, the church looks the same as it did more than a century ago, and it remains in use as an active church, now known as the Greater Hartford United Church of Christ. Along with the other buildings here in the village center, it is now part of the Hartford Village Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Louis S. Newton House, Hartford, Vermont

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The house at 1683 Maple Street in Hartford, around 1900. Image from The Old and the New.

The house in 2018:

This Greek Revival-style cottage was built around 1859, and its earliest recorded owner was George Brockway, a chair manufacturer who was listed here as the owner in the 1869 county atlas. It does not indicate whether he personally lived here or just owned the property, but it seems likely that this was his home, and the 1870 census shows him living in Hartford with his four young children, who ranged in age from three months to four years old. He ultimately sold the property for $1,400 to John H. French in 1871, and he died two years later at the age of 43.

In 1884, the house was purchased by Almira L. Newton, who lived here for many years along with several other family members, including her sister Caroline and her brother Louis. None of the three siblings evidently ever married, although Almira raised her adopted son Bradleigh here. All three of the Newtons were living at the house during the 1900 and 1910 censuses, but Louis appears to have moved elsewhere in town by 1920, and in 1921 he relocated to Burlington.

Louis S. Newton was a noted local architect. Here in Hartford, he is perhaps best remembered for his 1903 remodeling of the historic Second Congregational Church, and he also did some work here on his sister’s house, adding Colonial Revival-style details around 1900. Elsewhere, his other works consisted of a variety of houses and commercial buildings, including both renovations and new construction. He designed the Occom Ridge houses at nearby Dartmouth College at the turn of the 20th century, and in 1914 he restored the Old Constitution House in Windsor, which is regarded as the birthplace of Vermont.

The house remained in the Newton family until at least the early 1940s, and it has since changed ownership many times over the years. However, its appearance has remained remarkably unchanged throughout this time, with few exterior changes more than a century after the first photo was taken. Today, the house is part of the Hartford Village Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Ephraim Morris House, Hartford, Vermont

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The house at 1627 Maple Street in Hartford, around 1900. Image from The Old and the New.

The scene in 2018:

This house was built in 1894 as the home of Ephraim Morris, one of the most prominent residents of late 19th century Hartford, Vermont. Morris was born in 1832, a little to the north of here in the town of Strafford, and he grew up in Norwich, where he attended Norwich University before moving to Boston to become a clerk in a boot and shoe firm. However, he ultimately returned to Vermont in 1854, settling in Hartford and joining his father Sylvester’s business. Later in the year, he married his wife, Almira M. Nickerson, who was originally from South Dennis, Massachusetts.

Sylvester Morris retired in 1857, and Ephraim carried on the business with his brother Edward. In the early years, they ground plaster and sold it for use as fertilizer, but they subsequently switched to manufacturing chairs. Then, later in the 19th century the brothers entered the woolen manufacturing industry, operating the Hartford Woolen Company along with the Ottauquechee Woolen Company in nearby North Hartland.

Aside from these businesses, Ephraim was also a director and vice president of the National Bank of White River Junction, and he represented Hartford in the state legislature from 1896 to 1898. However, perhaps his single most important contribution to the town came in 1893, when he donated $5,000 to build the Hartford Library. The library, which remains in use today, stands directly adjacent to the spot where, a year later, he built his own house.

Ephraim and Almira Morris had two daughters, Kate and Annie. Both attended Smith College, and Kate was in the school’s first graduating class, along with being the first to receive a Ph.D. from the school. She married Charles M. Cone in 1884, and they lived in a historic house just a little to the east of here in the center of Hartford. Annie, who was 14 years younger than her sister, was still living with her parents when they moved into this house in 1894, and she was still here during the 1900 census, shortly before her marriage to Roland E. Stevens.

The first photo was taken around this time, showing the side view of the house from the library grounds. The architecture of the house was primarily Colonial Revival in style, with distinctive elements such as the large Palladian window, but it also had some features from the earlier Queen Anne style, including the asymmetrical design and the turret at the southeast corner of the house.

Ephraim Morris died in 1901, followed by his widow Almira in 1909. Their daughter Annie subsequently inherited this house, and she lived here with her husband Roland for many years. He was a lawyer, and probably his most famous case came late in his life, when in 1952 he sued the state of Vermont on behalf the Iroquois tribe, claiming that much of the state’s land was unlawfully taken from them. The suit was ultimately unsuccessful, but both he and his case gained widespread attention in newspapers across New England.

Annie apparently died at some point in the 1950s, and Roland died in 1957 at the age of 89. Their large house was subsequently sold to the Bible Baptist Church, which converted it into a church. Since then, the building has been acquired by a different church, Praise Chapel, and it remains in use today. Despite these changes in use, though, the exterior of the building has remained well-preserved in more than a century since the first photo was taken, and it is now a contributing property within the Hartford Village Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Hartford Library, Hartford, Vermont

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The Hartford  Library on Main Street (now named Maple Street) in Hartford, around 1900. Image from The Old and the New.

The building in 2018:

This Queen Anne-style library building was constructed in 1893, in the center of the village of Hartford. It was built thanks to the efforts of several prominent locals, including Horace and Seraph Pease, who donated a parcel of land adjacent to their home, and Ephraim Morris, a woolen manufacturer who gave $5,000 to construct it.

The library was dedicated on September 16, 1893, in a ceremony that included remarks by former governor and Civil War Medal of Honor recipient Samuel E. Pingree. He was a Hartford resident and one of the founders of the library, and he also served on its board of trustees. His comments were followed by the keynote speaker, Dartmouth College President William Tucker, who spoke on “Uses of a Library.”

Upon completion, the library consisted of a reading room on the first floor, and a lecture room, known as Library Hall, on the second floor. At the time, it had about 2,000 books in its collections, but by the early 20th century it had grown to some 4,000. A total of 4,503 books were checked out from the library in 1908, and during its first 15 years in operation the library served 1,550 different patrons here.

The first photo was taken around this time, but very little has changed here in this scene more than a century later. It remains in use as a public library, with around 17,000 items in its collections today, and it is now one of four libraries in the town of Hartford. The exterior of the building has remained well-preserved throughout this time, and in 1994 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Four years later, it also became a part of the Hartford Village Historic District, which encompasses many of the buildings here in the traditional town center of Hartford.

 

Sunnyacre, Hartford, Vermont

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The house at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets (present-day Maple and Elks Streets) in Hartford, around 1900. Image from The Old and the New.

The house in 2018:

This Queen Anne-style house was built in 1884 as the home of Horace Pease, a member of one of the most prominent families in Hartford during the late 19th century. His father, Luther Pease, had owned the original Pease Hotel here in the village for many years, and he was also a merchant who sold hardware, paints, tinware, stoves, and other such items out of his store nearby.

Horace Pease was born in 1844, and over the years he was involved in a number of different business in the area. He was a partner in the manufacturing firm of French, Watson & Co., which produced farming tools such as pitchforks, rakes, shovels, and spades, and he was also the president of the Ottauquechee Woolen Company. In addition, he served variously as town treasurer, town auditor, and a justice of the peace, and he was the secretary and treasurer of the Hartford Water Works, with his wife Seraph serving as president.

Horace and Seraph Pease were married in 1877, and in 1884 they moved into this newly-built house in the center of Hartford. This lot had been the site of an earlier house that was built here in 1801, but when Horace purchased the property he relocated it to Summer Street and constructed his own house here. He and Seraph subsequently lived here for the rest of their lives, until her death in 1929 and his death three years later.

With no surviving children, Horace’s nephew Charles W. Pease inherited the property, and the house remained in the family for a few more years until it was sold in 1938. Then, in 1945 the house was sold to the Hartford Elks Club, and it was used as the club’s lodge for the rest of the 20th century. During this time, it underwent a significant expansion with an addition to the rear of the building, as shown on the far right side of the second photo.

The Elks chapter has since disbanded, but their sign was still standing when the photo was taken in December 2018. Aside from the addition, the exterior of the house has seen other changes over the years. Many of the original Victorian-era details are now gone, along with the shutters, and the house is now covered in siding. Overall, though, it is still an architecturally-significant feature in the center of Hartford, and in 2018 the 11,000-square-foot building was eyed as the new home of the Hartford Historical Society. However, the organization was unable to raise the necessary funds, and the property has since been sold to a church for use as a community center.

Pease Hotel, Hartford, Vermont

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The Pease Hotel on Main Street (now Maple Street) in Hartford, around 1900. Image from The Gateway of Vermont: Hartford and its Villages (1903).

The scene in 2018:

During the first half of the 19th century, this village was the main commercial center of the town of Hartford. The village is located along the banks of the White River, about a mile and a half north of its confluence with the Connecticut River, and it was the site of several early hotels. One of these was opened on this spot in 1801 by Asa Richardson, and during its early years it was known as the Richardson Hotel. However, over the next few decades it went through a number of ownership changes, before eventually being acquired by Luther Pease.

Around this same time, the town of Hartford was undergoing a transformation with the arrival of the railroads. Given its strategic location at the meeting place of two major rivers, the previously sparsely-developed eastern side of the town would soon become one of the most important railroad hubs in the state, with four different rail lines meeting there by 1850. White River Junction, as the newly-developed village came to be known, soon eclipsed the traditional town center in economic importance, and it was also the site of a new hotel, the Junction House.

Despite these changes, though, Luther Pease continued to run his hotel here, along with a nearby hardware, paint, tinware, and stove store. After his death in 1876, his son Charles W. Pease took over the hotel. Charles retired from active management of the hotel in the mid-1880s and began leasing it to a different landlord, but he retained ownership of the building until January 24, 1889, when the hotel was destroyed by a fire that began in the livery stable.

The fire left nothing standing except for the chimneys, but Charles Pease was undeterred. He began using his own house as a temporary hotel, and he soon started planning a new building. He died in 1890, but his family completed the new Pease Hotel in 1893, at a cost of about $22,000. Its exterior design was a late example of Second Empire-style architecture, featuring a mansard roof and a tower at the southeast corner of the building, as shown in the first photo.

As it turned out, though, the new hotel was not particularly successful, perhaps as a result of the continued importance of White River Junction over the old town center. It ultimately closed around 1906, and in 1908 the Pease family sold the building to Addison Ely, a New Jersey resident who reopened it as the White River Tavern.

Under new ownership, the hotel marketed itself as a place for tourists, with advertisements describing it as “An ideal Health and Rest resort. Modern improvements. Newly furnished. Excellent Cuisine. Select patronage. Moderate prices. Open all the year.” However, it continued to struggle, and even closed for a period of time during the winter of 1911-1912 because of financial difficulties. The hotel finally closed in 1919, and the building was subsequently demolished, although a portion of it evidently survived and stood here until 1941, when it was destroyed by a fire.

Today, there is nothing left here in this scene from the first photo. The site of the hotel is now a gas station and convenience store, which was constructed around 1950. Directly behind it is a house, which is partially visible in the present-day photo. Aside from the loss of the hotel, though, many of the other historic 19th century buildings here in the center of Hartford are still standing today, and they form the Hartford Village Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.