Turns Out Hartford Doesn't Suck

Turns Out Hartford Doesn’t Suck
Monday, April 23rd

The rain went away, the sun came out, I was a tourist for a day and my wife came to visit with our dog: all these events conspired to redeem Hartford in my eyes.

Friday morning, I set out to see Hartford. I started at the Mark Twain House. Samuel Clemens and his family called Hartford home for 17 years. His wife had a great deal of family money, so they built themselves a three story Victorian home in a very fashionable part of Hartford. Hartford, at the time (1874), was both the richest (per capita) city in America and the center of the publishing industry. (The home they built was right next door to the one Harriet Beecher Stowe had built with the money from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.) They had the interiors decorated by Tiffany. Way over the top in the best sort of Victorian way. It was the place that Twain did most of his best-known writing. He wrote Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the 3rd floor billiards room. It was also here that he went broke on a series of inventions and bad investments. The family had to leave the home and go to Europe to escape their creditors.

The house has a nice visitors’ center sunk into the hill behind. It allows the house to appear much as it did while the Clemens family lived there. The whole place has been restored and is really amazing. The entire interior is luxurious in that particularly Victorian way. Every surface is decorated: the woodwork is stained and then stenciled in silver! My tour guide was minimally informative, but the house was really the star.

The Mark Twain House

After wandering the museum and the grounds, I decided to see Twain’s famous neighbor and visited the Harriet Beecher Stowe house. I walked across the lawn to her visitors’ center. Admittedly, I knew next to nothing about Mrs. Stowe (I’ve never read Uncle Tom’s Cabin). Her home was fascinating for its contrast to Twain’s. She built the house with the immense proceeds from her book. In fact, it was the second house she built in the neighborhood (the first was larger and closer to the river, but the smell of sewage in the summer drove her inland and her strict moral ideals lead her to build a smaller house the second time). She came from a family of ministers of great renown and married a professor of theology, so her sense of right and wrong was severe. The loss of her own son lead her to identify closely with the plight of women in slavery who were forcibly separated from their children. She began Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a serial in an abolitionist newspaper. But its popularity was such that it was published as a novel at the same time that the final installment was published in the paper. She was able to live quite comfortably from the proceeds and wrote several more novels as well as a homemaker’s guide in addition to indulging her skills as an amateur artist.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's home.

I took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked back to the center of town. Along the way, I passed the headquarters of both AETNA and CIGNA insurance companies (with the Traveler’s tower gleaming in the distance). Hartford truly is the insurance company of the world.

I also visited the Old State House. Built as the early state capital building, the state house houses a museum in the basement as well as the historical rooms above. Downstairs, I learned about some of the other industries in Hartford (they make Colt firearms, aircraft engines as well as LEDs), the story of urban renewal projects in Hartford (as random and seemingly short-sighted as everywhere else) and about famous Hartford residents (Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain). Upstairs, I explored the court room where the case of the Amistad was first tried as well as the village green where General Washington welcomed General Rochambeau and his French army to assist in the revolutionary cause. The building was truly multi-purpose. It housed not only the governor’s office, the state court and the congress but was also home to the village market, a portrait studio and a museum of “curiosities” (including a two-headed calf). Later, it became Hartford’s city hall.

The Old State House

All in all, Friday was a tourist success! Friday night, Sheila Marie arrived with Andy in tow (I should have gotten them both Amtrak frequent traveler cards). We had a really nice weekend exploring and enjoying the sunshine. We spent a lot of time in the park before the show both Saturday and Sunday. We shared a yummy Mexican meal at Agave with Karl and Francesca on Saturday and ate our pasta in the park on Sunday before Sheila and Andy had to catch their train home.

JV & Andy D on the shores on the CT River

The CT River was just starting to subside...

SM, JV & the CT State Capital

JV, Andy D & the CT State Capital

With the sunshine, my dog and (most importantly) my wife I had a really nice final weekend in Hartford.

Backstage Scene:
I’m sitting at the call desk when a man dressed as a frog approaches and says: “Sometimes I just feel ridiculous. I mean, what am I doing with my life?!?” He then, quite literally, hops away. Genius.

JV