Hartford HistoryTrivia Questions, Weeks 103-108Return to trivia home page
Q: Hartford was home to three White Tower hamburger stands. Where in the city were they located? A: One was at 701 Main Street, another at 361 Asylum Street. They closed within a week of each other in July 1981. The third White Tower, at Main and Buckingham streets, closed sometime earlier. (Source: Hartford Courant, July 15, 1981.)
Q: What Hartford mayor turned down President Grover Cleveland's invitation to become ambassador to Mexico with the exclamation, "What? And leave Hartford?" A: Henry C. Robinson, who also was a principal in the law firm Robinson & Cole. (Source: "Images of America: Lost Hartford," compiled by Wilson H. Faude.)
Q: A terrible social phenomenon gripped Hartford and much of the rest of Connecticut in 1662-1663. What was it? A: A witchcraft panic. Accusations were made against seven women and four men, including eight Hartford residents, according to Bruce P. Stark, in his section of "Connecticut History and Culture: An Historical Overview and Resource Guide for Teachers," published by the Connecticut Historical Commission and the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University. Stark writes that three people were condemned to death - among them, John and Rebecca Goldsmith of Hartford. Glenn Weaver, in his book, "Hartford: An Illustrated History of Connecticut's Capital," identifies the husband as Nathaniel Greensmith. The couple had arrived in Hartford in 1655, he writes, and "neither was very popular from the beginning." She was hanged in Meetinghouse Yard; he "met a similar fate" on January 25, 1663, according to Weaver, who also notes that all of this happened 30 years before the much more notorious withcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts.
Q: In the early 1920s, trust officers for two Hartford banks - Maynard T. Hazen of the United States Security Trust Company and Clark T. Durant of the Hartford-Connecticut Trust Company - told Hartford attorney Arthur Pomeroy Day about some problems they had been having with wills. Their discussions eventually led to the creation of a public foundation enabling banks and trust companies to hold donated funds in perpetuity and to appropriate income from those funds for community improvement. That foundation is alive and well today. Name it. A: The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. (Source: "Hartford: An Illustrated History of Connecticut's Capital," by Glenn Weaver.) Here's the foundation's Web site: http://www.hfpg.org/matriarch/default.asp.
Q: To help bring the United States out of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a massive public works program called the Works Progress Administration. The unemployed who lacked skills were given work as manual laborers in the construction of everything from roads and bridges to schools and post offices. Meanwhile, unemployed craftsmen, artists, actors, musicians, and academics were given work in their fields. In Hartford, one performing-arts organization that got its start as a WPA program continues today as a cornerstone of the city's art scene. Name it. A: The Hartford Symphony Orchestra. In the 1930s, unemployment was especially high among musicians. Besides the economic conditions afflicting everyone else, they had to contend with theaters making the switch from live performances to motion pictures, which meant the elimination of pit orchestras. The WPA created orchestras in many cities, but Hartford's was one of the few to outlive the WPA itself. (Source: "Hartford: An Illustrated History of Connecticut's Capital," by Glenn Weaver.) The HSO has a Web site at http://www.hartfordsymphony.org.
Q: The oldest educational institution in Connecticut - and hence one of the oldest in the country - was founded in Hartford in 1638, just two years after the Rev. Thomas Hooker and his party founded the city. Name that institution. A: Hartford Public High School. After long service as the Hopkins Grammar School, it became a high school in 1847. It wasn't Connecticut's first high school, however. That honor goes to Middletown High School, which opened in 1840. (Sources: "Yesterday's Connecticut," by Malcolm L. Johnson and "Connecticut, by Albert E. Van Dusen.)
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