Biography

Stop #1: Doctor Gallaudet and His First Deaf Mute Pupil

Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French's 1924 sculpture of Doctor Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was commissioned by the National Association for the Deaf to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the American School for the Deaf. The West Hartford monument is a second casting of French's 1889 bronze original which is at Gallaudet College in Washington D.C.

Stop #2: Capitol Sculpture, South Wing: Connecticut Heroes of the Civil War Era

Hermon Atkins MacNeil

The South Wing of the Capitol, above the covered arrival porch, was intended to have portrait statues of Connecticut's leading heroes of the Civil War.

Stop #3: Capitol Sculpture, North Facade: Early Colonial Connecticut and Founding Fathers

Herbert Adams, Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Paul Wayland Bartlett, Richard E. Brooks

The North Façade of the Capitol Building depicts early prominent figures of Connecticut’s history. The statues represent the earliest period of Connecticut’s history beginning in the 16th century, and the portrait medallions represent a later era of American history, the 19th and 20th centuries.

Stop #4: Morgan and the Wadsworth Atheneum

J.P. Morgan had connections with Hartford his whole life, but he actively interacted with the city and her projects once he had become a notable banker. His Goodwin cousins were leaders of the Board of Trustees for The Wadsworth Atheneum and they were able to convince Morgan and his father in making sizable donations to the museum. Morgan also provided $75,000 to the museum in order for them to purchase land for expansion.

Stop #5: Capitol Sculpture, South Wing: Ella Grasso

Frank Chalfant Gaylord II

Ella Grasso was the first woman to be elected a governor of any state. She was Connecticut's eighty-third governor. Her statue was added to the State Capitol in 1987. Frank Chalfant Gaylord II was the artist chosen for the commission.

Stop #6: General Israel Putnam

John Quincy Adams Ward

Stop #7: Samuel Colt Monument

John Massey Rhind

The monument to Samuel Colt, the first industrial tycoon in Hartford and inventor of the Colt Revolver, marks the entrance to Colt Park. John Massey Rhind was commissioned to complete the monument in 1905 by Elizabeth Jarvis Colt in memory of her husband who died at the age of 47.

Stop #8: Horace Wells Memorial Plaque

Enoch Smith Woods

Stop #9: Colonel Thomas Knowlton

Enoch Smith Woods

Colonel Thomas Knowlton was killed at the battle of Harlem Heights in 1776 and was considered a hero of the American Revolution. The statue was created to be a companion piece to the monuments to Nathan Hale, another Connecticut martyr of the Revolution. Enoch Woods’s sculpture of Knowlton was commissioned by the General Assembly of Connecticut in 1893.

Stop #10: Nathan Hale

Enoch Smith Woods

Sculpted by Enoch Smith Woods, Nathan Hale was the runner up in a competition sponsored by the State of Connecticut. The winner of the competition was to be placed in the interior of the Capitol Building. James J. Goodwin, the man who commissioned the statue, presented it to The Wadsworth Atheneum in 1892.

Stop #11: Nathan Hale, Capitol Lobby

Karl Gerhardt

Nathan Hale by Karl Gerhardt was the winner of a competition started by the State of Connecticut. The statue is housed inside the Capitol’s first floor corridor. The statue is supposed to convey the emotions of the moments leading up to Hale's death by hanging.

Stop #12: Dr. Horace Wells

Truman Howe Bartlett

Hartford dentist, Dr. Horace Wells (1815-1848), discovered the pain reducing effects of anesthesia in December 1844. He died tragically by his own hand in 1848 but gained posthumous credit and fame for his life-saving idea.