Hartford,
Consolidated city and town of
Connecticut, port of entry, and capital of the
State; on the
Connecticut River and several lines of railroads and steamers.
It is one of the wealthiest cities in the
United States for its size, and the greatest insurance city in the world.
Among its noteworthy buildings are the
State Capitol, Trinity College,
Hartford Theological Seminary,
Wadsworth Atheneum, American School for Deaf Mutes, Colt Memorial Church, State Armory, and many elegant residences.
The State library, in the
Capitol, contains pictures of the governors of the colony and State, and in the park are statues of
General Putnam and
Dr. Horace Wells, one of the alleged discoverers of anesthesia, and a Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch.
The city is noted also for the extent and variety of its manufactures, which include machinery, bicycles, fire-arms, motor vehicles, silk goods, drop-forgings, metal castings, cyclometers, envelopes, etc.
English emigrants from
Cambridge, Mass., reached the vicinity of the present city in 1635, and in the following year a considerable number of members of the church at
Cambridge (then
Newtown) settled here under the leadership of
the Revs. Thomas Hooker and
Samuel Stone.
The new settlement was first named
Newtown, which was changed to its present name in honor of
Stone's birthplace in
England in 1637.
On Jan. 14, 1639, at a gathering of the people of the towns of
Hartford,
Windsor, and
Wethersfield, in
Hartford, the first written American constitution was adopted, from which fact
Hartford has been called “the birthplace of American democracy.”
The city was the capital of
Connecticut till 1701, when
Hartford and New Haven were each constituted capital cities, the executive officers sitting in each city alternately.
In
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302]
1873 it again became the sole capital.
In 1900 the city had an assessed property valuation of about $70,000,000 and a population of 79,850.
See
Connecticut.
