USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Meriden > An historic record and pictorial description of the town of Meriden, Connecticut and men who have made it > Part 35
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1 Mr. Bates, who has given the writer the above facts, went from here to the Scovill House in Waterbury, and from there to various prominent hotels in this country, at first as clerk, and later as manager or owner ; they include St. Nicholas, New York; Ocean House, Newport ; Congress Hall, Saratoga ; Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York; New Southern, St. Louis, and for the past 12 years has been proprietor of Everett House, New York, and will have the Belmont when completed.
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EARLY HISTORY.
The year 1853 was a busy one in the building line in Meriden : during the decade from 1850 to 1860 the town more than doubled in population, rising from 3,559 to 7,426, and better and more numerous quarters were needed in every line of business. The Whig for April 14, 1853, in an article entitled "Building in Meriden" says, "the new building of the Messrs. Collins is nearly finished. It is three stories high, built of brick; the south half of the first story is occupied by the Messrs. Collins, and the store on the north end is occupied by Charles Blanchard as a clothing establishment: a small store near the center on the west side is being fitted up for a jeweler's shop to be occupied by Samuel Dunham." The Messrs. Collins were Aaron L. and Charles H., who carried on the grocery business here for a while, having at one time been located in the old Curtis L. North building: the firm was later known as Collins & Brooks. D. F. Southwick,1 at a later date, was selling boots and shoes in this building. On the second floor were located the rooms of the Young Men's Institute, immediately after its organization, and they continued to be put to that use until the Town Hall was completed in 1855. Then, the Institute moving into quarters in that building provided for it, the Home Bank, just organized (Nov., 1855), moved into the vacated rooms in the Collins block. O. H. Platt's offices were also on the same floor for a while. At a later date the store on the south side, where the Messrs. Collins had been located, was for a time the home of the post office, with one en- trance on Colony street and a second on the Main street side, by means of an iron stairway leading to a balcony. The building was popular as a stand be- cause so central : it was destroyed by the great fire of March 9, 1864, and the Lewis & Hall block now occupies the same site, at the east corner of Colony and Main streets ; but the Collins building extended considerably further north than its successor.
The newspaper article just quoted also states that "Curtis L. North's splendid house is now completed and he is engaged in beautifying his grounds." This was hardly more than six months before his failure.
Another popular building at this period was the brick block known as Andrews' Exchange, which stood where the G. A. R. hall is now located: it was perhaps erected in the year 1850, and in it the owner, Almon Andrews, had a hardware store; but, as in 1854 he had built a steam grist mill on Brooks street, at a spot now occupied by the north end of the Meriden Britannia Co. plant, he sold his hardware business to Newton F. Hart, who conducted quite an extensive store in the same line, and added to it a drug department, and
1 In 1858 C. H. Collins advertises that he has opened a boot and shoe store in the north store, where Chas. Blanchard had conducted the clothing establishment, and Mr. Southwick must have succeeded him some years later. In 1858 Samuel Dunham advertises that he has opened up a jewelry shop two doors west of High School avenue.
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later took a partner, B. P. Foote, while in the south half of the building (where H. C. & J. I. Butler had carried on the grocery business, under the name of Butler & Butler) Henry Stedman was attempting to rival the Messrs. Collins in catering to those who needed provisions of all kinds. He was compelled to make an assignment in 1856, and the business was bought by Henry T. Wilcox. Mr. Hart believed in the efficacy of advertising, for the newspapers of the period contained in each issue a column setting forth the merits and variety of the merchandise he was offering to the "selection of a judicious and discriminating public," and he was evidently one of the most prominent of Meriden's merchants of that period. He is still living, and resides in Engle- wood, one of Chicago's suburbs. This building was also destroyed by the fire of 1864, and the present one was erected by H. T. Wilcox shortly after.
The building known as No. 2 West Main street, at present owned by the Wilcox Realty Co., and now occupied by Griswold, Richmond & Glock Co., was erected about the year 1851 by the late Horace C. Wilcox, who had not long before started in business with his brother, Dennis C., and had already begun to show that indomitable push and energy which was later to make him such a factor in the growth and enterprise of Meriden : in 1853 the east half of the first floor of this block was leased by him as an office to the Meri- den Britannia Co., which had just been organized, while in 1854 the other side contained the jewelry store of F. A. Grover, but which had been replaced in 1857 by the tailor shop of J. H. Stevens, who had moved there from the west store in the Rogers block, across the street to the east: he had been in Meriden only a short time and was trying to impress on the Meriden public that Lewis S. Green was not the only tailor in the world. Mr. Stevens was of a jovial nature and popular, and became a well known character, and for many years continued to clothe the forms of those of the masculine gender, apparently to the satisfaction of his customers if not to that of his rivals. The earliest: advertisement in a newspaper that the writer remembers to have noticed, probably on account of its constant repetition in invariably the same words and arrangement, was an announcement which continued to occupy a con- spicuous place in the daily press for at least twenty years, and ran precisely as follows "Still they come, more new goods, cheap for cash, warranted to fit. J. H. Stevens." This continual refrain so impressed itself on the boyish imagi- nation that the belief became fixed that Mr. Stevens would never be able to find a place large enough to store all these new goods, which fancy pictured as con- stantly being dumped into his place of business by an unending procession of ex- pressmen.
Upstairs on the top floor in this Wilcox block, Chas. Page in 1855 had opened a studio for the production of daguerreotypes, or rather ambrotypes, as what was
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EARLY HISTORY.
considered to be an advance in the photographer's art was then called, and the second floor was supporting the printing press, and furnishing a place of seclu- sion for the editor of the "Meriden Observer," and William H. Green, a skilled draughtsman and engraver, (who had come to this country in company with Frank Leslie of illustrated newspaper fame) was furnishing in an adjoining room il- lustrations of their goods for various manufacturers of Meriden.
Just west of this block was a frame house painted white which had been the home of Major Cowles and which Mr. Wilcox was then using as his dwelling ; a long stretch of lawn, ornamented with a rustic summer house and a flower garden separated this house from the home of Mrs. Rosetta Cowles, the widow of the Major, which she and her brother, Dr. Isaac I. Hough, had lately built; in it were also living at this time Henry C. Butler and his family, and his daughter, Miss Lucy T., had just been married to William L. Squire (June 18, 1856), and af- ter a notice of the wedding ceremony the editor of the Meriden Transcript had inserted "The Printer tenders his thanks for being generously remembered in the distribution of cake."
This house, greatly altered, still stands in its original location, 20 West Main street, just west of the First National Bank building, and in one section of it Al- bert Babb now dispenses druggists' supplies.
A little west of this in a building which has given place to the brick block in which Louis H. Church and James F. Gill are serving the public in Nos. 30 and 32 West Main street, F. E. Hinman1 was selling books and stationery and manipulating a hand power printing press in the rear, and just west of this stood another small building in which Joel H. Guy kept the West Meriden post office when the fortunes of the political world had not sent it across the street into the keeping of Noah A. Linsley as happened now and then. Mr. Guy's dwelling house stood immediately west of this building, and in it was the first home of the Meri- den Savings Bank ; it stayed there for a year or two and then moved uptown to Franklin Hall ; the dwelling house now stands on Morgan street, the present large white house, 34 West Main street, having taken its place on the first site.
Across the street, on the west corner of High School avenue, was a store in which Ward Coe was trying to rival Aaron L. and C. H. Collins in the grocery line, and on the corner just east in the brick block now known as Lewis' but then owned by Levi Bradley, R. L. Webb was selling confectionery in the west store. later succeeded by William B. Smith in the same line, until he moved to Colony street, while in 1854 Stocking & Church were occupying the east side of this Bradley block with a selection of novelties and notions running from harmonicas to bird cages. Walter Hubbard (who was later to build up with N. L. Bradley the
1 When Mr. Hinman published Mr. Perkins' Historical Sketches of Meriden, 1849, he was located in the Rogers block, and a little later he was doing business in a little printing shop which stood about where Howard Brothers' store is situated, No. 7 Colony.
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great manufacturing plant of Bradley & Hubbard Mfg. Co.), was also located in this store for a while with a line of dry goods.
East of this block at No. 21 where R. C. Morse's tailoring shop is now located and in the same building, Lewis S. Green was carrying on the same line of bus- iness, and as he was well liked and hospitable and fond of hearing the talk of the day, his tailor shop became the rendezvous of those who had a new story to tell, a little gossip to retail, a new scheme to unfold or desired to pass an idle hour free from the cares of business. This little building must have been well crowded with business for during several years Noah Linsley occupied the same store with Green in dispensing boots and shoes while down stairs in the basement in 1854 C. A. Hotchkiss was serving what he called the "Meriden Lunch," and in 1856 in the same place C. W. Bradley, with less patriotism in nomenclature, was running a plain "eating saloon," but which he flattered himself "could not be excelled in Mer- iden in the variety and excellence of its viands."
In the block now occupied by F. J. Wheeler, 17-19 West Main street, which has already been described as the Curtis L. North store, after the Meriden House had been built, and this building had been fronted on Main street, S. B. Parmelee in 1855 advertises that he has opened a grocery store ; but he was soon succeeded by D. & N. G. Miller with a large stock of dry goods, and there they continued until 1862.
The Meriden House block was, of course, considered a fine stand for merchants. and in 1854, A. Birdsey & Co., who had been located in the east part of the Bird- sey block, corner of East Main and Broad streets, and being impressed by the well- worn epigram of Bishop Berkeley that "westward the course of empire takes its way" had finally yielded to the inevitable and rented the north store in the new hotel block, on Colony street, where P. T. Ives now tempts the eye with a glitter- ing array of gold and silver novelties. Mr. Birdsey opened with a stock of cloth- ing and just north of him in the building where Adam Orr now sells meats and vegetables, William B. Smith was selling in 1856 ice cream and all sorts of delec- table sweets.
In the Meriden House block just south of A. Birdsey & Co. in the corner store was located A. C. Wetmore shortly succeeded by Charles P. Colt with an attrac- tive line of dry goods.
In the same block in the store now occupied by the Western Union Telegraph office, Edwin L. Yale was selling newspapers and periodicals of the day and soon succeeded by Julius Ives. with a stock of merchandise which he was selling under the sign of Cash & Exchange Grocery store, and the west store was occupied by Morris Levy with a line of ready-made clothing, and when he got through, the room was used by the hotel as a billiard parlor.
The banking building which had been erected by Curtis L. North just previous to his failure, on Colony street next to Church street, stood there several years
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previous to its removal to West Main street as has been described elsewhere, and when the Home Bank decided to climb down and out of the Collins block they moved into this ill-fated structure and stayed there until 1863 when they built the present banking house.
North of this was the First Congregational church, presenting its dignified front, graced by a pediment supported by six Corinthian columns and crowned by a spire of pleasing proportions, and on the lot north, where the Winthrop Hotel now stands, was the dwelling house of the widow Cordelia Couch who vied with Mrs. Merriam of Broad street in producing in her millinery parlors those fasci- nating creations so dear to the feminine heart and still more dear to the masculine pocketbook.
On the other side of the street where the Byxbee House block now stands was located the homestead of William Hale, which he bought in 1846 of Richard N. Dowd: the property included half an acre and we have already noted that he sold his garden plot to the railroad company in 1853. Mr. Hale began the manufac- ture of suspenders in the rear part of the house, and after a few years finding his. business rapidly increasing, built a shop east of the house and fronting on the railroad track: having begun to make carpet bags also he took into partnership about 1852 Hezekiah H. Miller and Edwin H. Loomis. He sold the carpet bag business in 1855 to Jedediah Wilcox who had begun business in the same line some years previously in a shop which stood where the house of L. C. Brown is. now located at No. 842 Broad street : from thence he had moved to a factory which he had erected in the triangle formed by the junction of Pratt and Camp streets, and afterwards building a shop where the Wilcox Silver Plate Co. plant is now located, in order to accommodate his new line of balmorals and hoop skirts. Mr. Miller went into company with Mr. Wilcox when he bought the carpet bag busi- ness, and Mr. Hale continued in his own shop, taking into partnership J. S. Nor- ton, Sr., and making tape measures and also sewing-birds, once such an indispens- able requisite to a woman's work table. Mr. Hale subsequently sold the plant and house to Mr. Norton and bought the Meriden House which he made his home until his death. Mr. Norton finally sold the shop and business to the Bradley & Hubbard Co. and both house and shop were destroyed by fire as described on a subsequent page.
It has already been mentioned that the Rogers block was erected by Major Cowles in 1840 and sold by Mrs. Cowles to Hervey Rogers in 1846. The latter subsequently enlarged the building and raised it, making the roof flat and there was complaint at the time that he had encroached on the highway. When George S. Jeffrey came to Meriden about 1851 he found the north front of the ground floor of this block occupied as a barber shop by Eldridge Jones. Jones1 was the es-
1 On page 253 it is stated that the names of the two fugitive slaves, to whom Homer Curtiss gave shelter, were Eldridge and Jones. The person who gave the information was in error. "Lon" Jeffrey says one was named Eldridge Jones, the other Hinton Foster.
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caped slave who had come to Meriden and received shelter from Homer Curtiss. Although the son of a colored woman his father was said to have been the brother of James K. Polk, president of the United States. Mr. Jeffrey stayed with Jones a few months as an employee and then left Meriden: returning in a year or so he found Jones had moved his shop to the Conklin hotel across the street in the rear part where we have noted the words "Railroad Refectory."
The hotel was at that time under the management of Peter Near and later his wife. Mr. Jeffrey worked for Jones two or three years and then bought him out (the latter moving to Springfield) and after a time Mr. Jeffrey moved his barber shop, first to where Adam Orr is now located on Colony street ; then to Wilcox block, No. 2 West Main street, and later to the Rogers block on the second floor, and there continued a number of years and many will remember the large emblaz- oned poster which used to stare one in the face when reclining in one of the barber chairs : it read as follows : "It chills my blood to hear the great Supreme rudely ap- pealed to on such trifling themes. Maintain your rank, profanity despise : to swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise."
This sign was placed there after a scene which occurred one day when the late Rev. Dr. Giles H. Deshon and Edwin E. Curtis were in the shop to have their un- necessary hirsute growth removed. A couple of young men or boys, happening to be there at the same time, were indulging in a most foolish and unreasonable display of profanity. The doctor could stand it for a short time only and turned and rebuked the young men; and then Mr. Jeffrey, impressed by the weight of the doctor's remarks, erected the sign.
To return to the Rogers block: in 1854 E. Levy was carrying on the clothing business in one of the stores and in the other J. R. Clark & Co. were selling hats and caps, and C. F. Atwood was using part of the room as a periodical and news stand and at one time Asahel Curtis, Jr., was there selling cigars and tobacco : as already noted J. H. Stevens was also for a short time selling his wonderful accumu- lation of "new goods" in this building.
In the Meriden Recorder for Sept. 10, 1870, we read that C. Rogers & Bros. (sons of Hervey Rogers) are about to retire from the hotel business and wish to dispose of the building and in the issue of September 26 following it is announced that the establishment is closed. On the 6th of the next month we read that "the Rogers Brothers have leased their hotel to the Smith Brothers for five years. The lessees will move their hair dressing establishment to the building and continue the hotel as heretofore."
Where Grant's tea store is located in Paddock's block on the corner of State and Main streets was a building1 in which Merriam & Blakeslee manufactured and
1 Judging from a deed to the Hartford and New Haven Railroad in 1836, this same building or site was occupied at that time by a firm called Tibbals, Brooks & Co., manufacturers ; composed of Elisha A. Cowles, Walter Booth, James S. Brooks and Isaac I. Tibbals.
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sold tinware, and under it was a drug store and just a little further east was Willmot's "furniture emporium" while across the street in the block bounded by Perkins, Main and South Colony streets and the railroad track was the lumber yard of Lyman Clark, and south of it where Saleski's fruit store now stands was his steam sawmill.
During this growing and developing period there had been formed a partner- ship known as Lyon & Billard, composed of George W. Lyon and John D. Bil- lard, who had started in business in 1847 on Butler street. They were burned out and at the time in question had settled down in the locality where the corpo- ration known by that name still has its headquarters except that its growth has largely extended the original premises.
Many, in fact probably a majority of the buildings mentioned in this mid-cen- tury period, were erected by this enterprising firm.
Many will remember the old wooden bridge that once spanned Harbor brook at the Main street crossing : the brook must run under a part of Grant's tea store on the north side and directly beneath Maurice O'Brien's market on the south, but the stream is now so completely hidden by bridge and buildings that it is difficult to give exact locations. In the Recorder for May 20, 1864, we read "as will be seen by our report of the town meeting, it was voted last Saturday to have a sub- stantial stone arched bridge across the Harbor Brook, on Main street. The new bridge is to be sixty-six feet wide or twenty-eight feet wider than the present bridge. It is to be completed during the coming summer and autumn and is to cost a sum not exceeding three thousand dollars."
Before leaving this description of the business center of the village of Meriden between the years 1850-1860, we must not forget one of the ineradicable features which remain in the minds of every one who has a recollection of those days.
In the junction of Main and Colony streets stood an elm tree, a sign post, a hay scales and a pump communicating with the well dug by John Merriam so long ago.
According to a letter which appeared in the Meriden Republican on September 5, 1868, from William J. Screen, this elm tree was planted by him in 1834 at the request of Dr. Isaac I. Hough. Mr. Screen found the elm in the woodland near Cat Hole pass and dug the hole for it in the junction of the two roads, while Dr. Hough trimmed the branches to the proper portions : and then it was planted while Dr. Hough stood by and directed the work and finally paid all bills. There the tree continued to grow and flourish until it was scorched and badly damaged by the great fire of March 9, 1864.
It was hoped that a few years would enable the tree to overcome the damage. but in 1868 it was determined to take it down and its valedictory appeared in the Republican as follows: "The tree was planted and grew as the city grew, and as the city throve and as manufactories arose, so did the elm spread forth its branches and increase in beauty and in strength. Under its ample shade stump speakers
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have orated, lecturers have lectured, divines have held forth, and quacks have gulled the public and carried thousands of dollars from the town. When the ped- dlers of the future flock to the usual trysting place they will find it no more! their profit as well as its glory has departed." On Aug. 22, 1868, the same paper says that "stern necessity has compelled the removal of the old elm tree from the middle of our most crowded thoroughfare and in view of the immediate removal of the obnoxious old pump and sign post everybody is pleased with the change."
The temperance movement1 which for some time had agitated the community finally crystallized into the establishment of what was called the Young Men's In- stitute. The first meeting was held Feb. 2, 1853, in the lecture room that stood in the rear of the First Congregational church. It at once became popular, for the membership embraced the most influential of the young men of Meriden and many of those of riper years : attractive rooms were fitted up in the Collins block and weekly meetings were held, at which debates took place and a series of lec- tures was given each year in the town hall or other convenient places. Many of the most prominent speakers of the country were among the lecturers and the in- stitution became a great help, giving young men a chance to acquire knowledge and information who would otherwise have had perhaps no inclination or at least opportunity to come in contact with the best thought of the time. A library of several hundred volumes was contained in the rooms and the influence of the In- stitute was felt in many ways through the whole community. As already stated, the rooms were changed to the town hall in 1855 and it was maintained for per- haps a dozen or fifteen years, and when at last it ceased to exist the books were inherited by the Y. M. C. A.
Before 1849 Julius Andrews had opened a place of amusement and recreation known as Hemlock Grove, which speedily became very popular ; indeed it is not so many years ago since the Grove was still a popular place of resort, where Sun- day school picnics were held and various societies and organizations availed them- selves of the attractions afforded by its grateful shade and novel entertainments.
1 To show to what extremes the temperance movement was once carried in this town, the following vote is quoted, passed at a town meeting held June 3, 1842 :
"Resolved, That whereas the unlimited sale of Ardent spirits is, in our opinion, injurious to the purchaser, and the cause of a great proportion of our poor Taxes, and that the sale is, in our opinion, a source of considerable profit to the seller, we are therefore of opinion that all profit arising from the sale should go into the Town Treasury to help pay our poor rates : we, therefore, the Inhabitants of this Town would authorize the Civil authority and Selectmen to appoint some suitable person to be furnished by the said Selectmen with a good article of Spiritous Liquors and Wines to be sold on ac- count of the town, and the profits arising from said sale shall be paid into the Treasury of the Town, and that the persons so authorized shall be required to keep a record of the quantity sold, the quantity purchased by each individual, with their names, and a true report made to the next annual meeting of this Town." Vote was adopted, ayes 85, nays 57.
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