In 2011 following the October snowstorm, the Town of Windsor had Violet Street, Sunset Street, and West Service Road on its plow route. The 2013 snow operations map for Hartford said that the City is responsible for plowing all of Violet, Sunset, and Midland. Trash collection is partially done by Hartford, partially by Windsor. Children from a few houses on these streets would go into the Windsor Public Schools, namely Oliver Ellsworth and JFK.
The divisions are not made on a north or south side of Violet and Sunset, nor are they at intersections. Streams or ridges do not create any natural boundary. It does not seem to follow a treeline. Only one part of this section’s boundary is based on something organic, like where a stream meets a pond, but with the development of the highway in 1952, this is not even obvious. As for everything else, it appears that the boundary cuts through
properties, through houses on Sunset and Violet, at a weird angle.
Are boundaries sometimes simply arbitrary?
Using logic, one would believe that perhaps the line changed significantly over the years. It’s true that the city boundary has changed in general, but with most Hartford history texts focused on Downtown, Asylum Hill, and bits of the West End, with the occasional nod given to Coltsville and the factories in Parkville and along Capitol Avenue, it’s not easy to get a sense for why.
Moving Lines
The city boundaries moved over and over. Poor reporting means poor records. Even those whose job it is to know how to access historical information could not tell me where details of such changes would be written down.
Combine this with a penchant for seemingly random property boundary descriptions, and you get something like this:
In 1853 an act was passed to allow the extension of city limits, or the “territory of and town of Hartford” which would be marked by what was described as a straight line to a point in the land of William Mather in North Meadows. This would be designated by a stake placed 2097 feet north from the intersection of the west line of Meadow Road with land belonging to the railroad. That must have made sense at the time.
Green Space and Wilson
Keney Park was originally 22 acres, with Hen-coop Bridge serving as the Windsor Avenue entrance to the park which opened in 1896 when Henry Keney’s land was annexed by Hartford for park purposes. It was spelled out so well that the land should have no use other than for park/recreation, but that did not stop anyone from later debating if that land should be used for housing. It definitely did not stop the State of Connecticut from building part of a highway through it less than a century later.
In 1915 Hartford purchased 86 acres from Wilson — part of Windsor — to expand Keney Park and create the Northwood Cemetery, which is home to Soldier’s Field. An 1887, an article in the Courant claimed little was known about how Solider’s Field was given to Hartford, including, apparently, when that happened. The purchase from Leland Wilson would have allowed Hartford to develop an artificial lake, which would have been the largest in the city. As we can see, there are no lakes in Keney Park today. The City also purchased a 50-foot strip of land described as being 30 feet north of the Allyn Wilson homestead, which ran from Windsor Road [Avenue] to this newly purchased land, giving access to the main road without having to go through the park to get to the cemetery. This would have meant that the Northwood Cemetery entrance was at Windsor Avenue. Within five years, there was talk of Wilson seceding from Windsor.
The Wilson Station village never actually managed to do that, but when one takes a look at its history, it becomes clear why it was more its own place than part of either Hartford or Windsor. This area popped up after a member of the Wilson family decided to use his own funds to establish a depot on his farm where the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad passed through. He did that after nobody in Windsor would get on board with his idea. He gave a few parcels of his land to the railroad and sold off some near Windsor Avenue. The Wilson Brick Company and a garden market were thriving businesses, giving the area the sense of being robust. The Wilson Volunteer Fire Department was founded in 1908.
Wilson was also a spot of confusion.
The Hartford/Windsor line passed through a barn on the Anders Christensen property. In 1921 when there was a fire on that property, the Wilson Volunteer Fire Department responded first. When more help was needed, both the Hartford and Windsor companies showed up, in that order. The Courant wrote, “One of those buildings straddled the Windsor and Hartford lines and for a time was rumored that the Hartford company had come to Windsor without permission.”
Several female employees of the Rand & Christensen market garden were struck by trains and killed, including two who were picking lima beans by the tracks.
During the Prohibition Era the City of Hartford arrested Wilson residents who were thought to be running whiskey into the city. One of these arrests in the woods of Wilson Station yielded 120 gallons of mash.
So the attempt to secede was not just in response to some in Windsor being angry that Wilson sold off land to Hartford. All these other issues and more, like poorly maintained roads, helped create that storm.
Back to Hartford–
After having been so far managed by trustees, Keney Park was officially turned over to the City of Hartford in 1924. Its golf course opened in 1927. In 1952 the State of Connecticut decided to build a concrete and steel highway bridge through part of Keney Park.
Marsh Family
None of that explains why the house built for John Marsh in 1783 at a 15 Violet Street address, faces Windsor Avenue, but is on both the Hartford and Windsor assessors’ lists, with one describing the building style as Colonial and the other calling it “antique.”
The Marsh family owned a chunk of land on the Hartford/Windsor border. What was owned by John E. Marsh in 1869 crossed the train tracks and, coincidentally, included swamp land. Marsh. The strange boundary was in place well before 1880, with Violet and Sunset streets on the maps by 1887. Records show Mary Marsh owning a parcel in 1896 between Keney Park and Main Street/Windsor Avenue, north of Tower. Those records called this parcel Windsor. In that same period, John E. Marsh was noted as owning a parcel on the other side of the town line.
This family, with some of its members on the outskirts of town — others had addresses throughout Hartford — had been important enough for its family reunions to get ink. A Hartford Courant item from 1895 describes them as a “family allied by marriage with such well known Hartford families as the Wadsworths, Clarkes, Hookers, Goodwins, Talcotts, Seymours, and Loomises.”
A Marsh was named among aldermen in the time. But, in 1899, John H. Marsh abandoned his wife and son entirely and skipped town. Newspaper reports show that his wife had previously left him when his “conduct towards his wife” became unbearable. He had owed money to his employer, Smith, Northam, & Co. and split. This was in the days when the act of running away from one’s debts and responsibilities would have actually made the news.
Populating the Block
Midland Street — parallel to Windsor Avenue and entirely in Hartford — appears in the city directory in 1916, with one resident, Louis Wyler, listed; records show that Midland was not officially recognized as a new street until 1926. By 1917, parcels of the Marsh property were subdivided and they had moved on. With Fuller Brush at 3580 Main Street (née 1080 Windsor Avenue) — previously Richard Mathers’ farmland — it is no surprise that the neighborhood would fill in. Despite it closing in the early 1960s, there was no loss of population here, even with the major demographic shifts experienced in the north neighborhoods during the 1950s and 1960s. The 3580 Main Street building was purchased in May 2014 by an investor from New York.
There are records of the City of Hartford taking steps in 1926 to make Sunset, Violet, and Midland more usable streets. The Board of Street Commissioners submitted several letters to the City Council “respectfully” recommending “the layout and establishment of sidewalk lines and orders the construction of curb and sidewalk” including the “said portion being the easterly extension of Violet Street as already accepted by the Town of Windsor.” A later letter from the Board of Street Commissioners to City Council recommended that “macadamizing Violet Street be taken under consideration when preparing the budget for 1927-1928.”
By the end of December 1926, the sidewalks were in place on Sunset. Concrete curbs and gutter were installed a few months later on Violet, but Sunset had to wait until 1929 for that; a request for macadamizing Sunset was not placed until 1928.
Over the next few years, the population of Midland Street grew and by 1929, all three streets in this nook were populated by multiple families, but that does not mean the conditions were excellent. There are records that the sidewalk and road work that had begun was incomplete, with a letter in 1930 urging that Council push for this work to be finished.
If you think the MDC work on Main Street had drawn loud complaints in recent years, the ongoing poor maintenance of the streets in this area inspired hyperbolic criticism from the Hartford Courant in 1918, with the area of Windsor Avenue north of Westland being compared to “the chaotic aspect of a French town near the fringe of No Man’s Land,” with a headline reading “It Looks As If A Long Range German Siege Gun Had Hit Windsor Avenue.” There were complaints that residents on Windsor Avenue were not consulted about changes to the street.
Unlike the Downtown, which saw a sharp population decrease through the mid-to-end of last century, this corner of the North East neighborhood has been stable, with Midland Street becoming partially, then entirely industrial, and remaining so. The Builders Steel Company occupied 40 Midland for some time, then was replaced by the Rowen Leahy Co. that specialized in construction equipment. Today, Midland is home to Lamar Advertising and a subsidiary, and Mass Envelope Realty/Grossman Marketing Group. Sunset and Violet are residential, with modest homes and maintained yards.
No Answers
We would like to hear from anyone who actually knows why this division is the way it is, why even those that are only on the Hartford assessor’s list have Windsor mailing addresses yet are served by the Hartford Police Department. We have found that while this appears to be the only truly bizarre part of the city boundary, our internal lines have at times made no sense either. In 1902 a Hartford Courant article described how school districts had been drawn up without attention to streets at all times. Back when our children would attend neighborhood schools, the boundary between the Arsenal and North East districts was from Gully Brook to the Connecticut River in one direction. The other boundary cut diagonally across Suffield, Bellevue, and Windsor Streets. One home was described as being divided with its parlor and sleeping room in the North East district, and the dining room, kitchen, and rest of lot in the Arsenal district. At the time people were taxed by district, and when a property was split, they would pay based on the locations of the majority of the property.
Sources
Geer’s Directory, many maps, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, assessor sites, Hartford GIS Open Data, and various other books, magazines, and websites.
Tenaya
This is bizarre but thanks for the history lesson!