Elizabeth Colt: Visual Feast of Sites

Elizabeth Colt leveraged her wealth into public institutions and architectural sites throughout Hartford. As part of my research I made an initial list of these sites; they are the manifestation of her legacy of public memorials and art. For my book, these sites and objects are the entryway to more fully experience the woman, the art patron, the mother, the wife.

  1. Armsmear, 80 Wethersfield Avenue: A wedding gift to his wife Elizabeth, Samuel constructed the Italianate mansion in 1856. It overlooked the Colt Armory with gardens including peach trees. Samuel lived there until his death in 1857 and Elizabeth and her son Caldwell Hart Colt resided in the lavish estate until her death in 1905. After her death the home became a residence for widows and daughters of Episcopal clergy. Today her legacy lives on, providing a home for women of limited income who are 60 years of age or older.
  2. Colt Park, adjacent to Armsmear; Once campgrounds to Saukioq Indians, Elizabeth gave the grounds to the city for use as a public park. A memorial statue, commissioned from artist J. Massey Rhind, greets visitors, honoring Samuel the industrialist. The monument depicts Samuel at two stages of his life; as a young boy “whittling a revolver chamber while serving as a sailor,” and as a man, the successful manufacturer. Public monuments is a compelling thread that weaves through Elizabeth’s philanthropy; ensuring Samuel’s legacy is visually maintained throughout the city.
  3. Church of the Good Shepherd, 155 Wyllys Street: Consecrated in 1869, Elizabeth commissioned architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to design the church in memory of her husband and three children she lost in their infancy. Located between the Colt factory complex and Armsmear, the Victorian Revival Gothic church illustrates Elizabeth’s efforts “to turn her business into an all-inclusive village for the factory’s worker.”
  4. Caldwell Colt Memorial, 155 Wyllys Street: Parish House next to the Church of the Good Shepherd, it is a memorial to Elizabeth’s only child to reach adulthood, Caldwell who died in a mysterious boating accident at 36 years old. Elizabeth brought out of retirement architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to build the “companion building,” 30 years after his work on the church. It celebrates Caldwell’s nautical interests with motifs of nature, yachts and the sea.
  5. Cedar Hill Cemetery, 453 Fairfield Avenue: Burial site to Elizabeth Colt and her family, Samuel, and her five children, a Colt memorial monument was designed and constructed by Hartford architect and sculptor, James G. Batterson. The monument is an “Egyptian Revival design constructed of gray granite and rose-colored sienite, topped with a bronze statue and incorporates Colt family arms. Samuel and and four of her children were originally interred in a private burial lot on Armsmear grounds amidst a copse of weeping willows known as ‘Groves of the Graves.’
  6. Wadsworth Atheneum, 600 Main Street: Elizabeth bequeathed her collection of over 600 art objects to the museum and left $50,000 to construct a wing to house the collection. It became the first wing in an American municipal museum to bear the name of a woman patron.