Touring Hartford's Capitol Building

Rotunda

Hartford Capitol
The building is one of the largest Eastlake-style buildings. The exterior is of marble from East Canaan, Connecticut, and granite from Westerly, Rhode Island. The building is roughly rectangular, the interior spaces organized around two open interior courts that run vertically to large skylights. In the center is a third circular open rotunda beneath the dome. The larger hall of the House of Representatives forms an extension on the south side.

Stained Glass windows  QUI TRANSTULT SUSTINET

Connecticut the Constitution State 

The figurehead of the US Constitution 

From the Battle Field of Chickamauga 18863

Genius of Connecticut
The Genius of Connecticut by sculptor Randolph Rogers (1877–78), a plaster version of the bronze statue (destroyed) originally mounted on top of the dome, is exhibited on the main floor

Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon
"Hotchkiss gun" also refers to the Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon, a Gatling-type revolving barrel machine gun invented in 1872 by Benjamin B. Hotchkiss (1826–1885)

Houses of Representatives  Republicans and Democrats

Bushnell Park backside of Capitol 

William Buckingham Governor and US Senator
The ship USS Governor Buckingham (1863) is named after him. Buckingham was a benefactor of Yale College and served as president of the Board of Trustees of Norwich Free Academy and as president of the Connecticut State Temperance Union. His house in Norwich is owned by the city and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A street and school are named in his honor in Norwich, and a statue of him is inside the State Capitol Building in Hartford

Charter Oak
 The name "Charter Oak" stems from the local legend in which a cavity within the tree was used in late 1687 as a hiding place for the Charter of 1662.

Columns in North Hall

Nathen Hale
Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was an American soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British and executed. His last words before being hanged were reported to be, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country

Charter Oak Chair of the Lieutenant Governor in Senate Chambers

The oak was blown down in a violent storm on August 21, 1856, and timber from it was made into several chairs now displayed in the Hartford Capitol Building. The desk of the Governor of Connecticut and the chairs for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate in the state capitol were made from wood salvaged from the Charter Oak.

A wooden baseball made from the Charter Oak was presented by the Charter Oak Engine Co. No. 1 on September 20, 1860, to the Charter Oak Base Ball Club of Brooklyn.^[2]

The New London Historical Society has a pair of cufflinks made from the wood of the Charter Oak with the initial "G" donated by Samuel Goldsmith.

Scions of the tree still grow in Hartford and many other towns around Connecticut.

Senate Chambers * our tour guide

Hartford Capitol Dome Victorian Period architecture. 

Visiting Lighthouse Point Park New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven Harbor Lighthouse

The New Haven Harbor lighthouse is also known as the Five Mile Point Light because it sits on a point of land five miles from the New Haven Green.

The history of the lighthouse began in 1804 when Amos Morris sold one acre to the U.S. Government for $100. On this site, the first lighthouse and keeper’s house were built of wood. In 140 work began to construct the 70-foot lighthouse, with sandstone quarried from East Haven and a solid brick interior. Its spiral granite staircase leads up to the lantern loft where the lighthouse lens was mounted. It was the keeper's duty to make sure the light was burning all night. By day he was to clean the lens, polish all brass, and fill the lamp with fuel. This lighthouse guided many ships into the harbor until 1877 when the Southwest Ledge light was built nearby on a Long Island Sound breakwater.

In 1990, the lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Beach at Point Lighthouse Park 

The Carousel & Ballroom at Lighthouse Point Park 

New Haven Harbor Lighthouse 

New Haven Harbor Lighthouse 

Beach and Lighthouse

Boat 

Butterfly Garden 

Butterfly Garden

Annual Migration Festival -
In September, the Ranger staff hosts the Annual Migration Festival at Lighthouse Point Park in conjunction with Audubon Connecticut and several New Haven area birding, butterfly, and environmental organizations.

The park is located on the Atlantic Flyway, a major route for butterflies, hawks, and many other bird species in their annual migration south for the winter months. Events include bird-watching walks, hawk displays, butterfly observations, and the annual hawk count, among others.

Beach at New Haven's Lighthouse Park

In 1924 the City of New Haven purchased Lighthouse Point Park from the East Shore Amusement Company. City residents came to the park to enjoy swimming, ferry boat rides to Savin Rock, track meets, football games, field days, and baseball leagues in the old grandstand/ballpark. The park, in the roaring ’20s, attracted legends Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb to Sunday afternoon games.

The hurricane of 1938 ripped through the park, destroying many buildings and trees. In 1950 the City was able to make major improvements at the park including a new bathhouse, a first aid station, and concession stands. A small amusement park was added and the beach was greatly improved

Visiting Yale University Newhaven, Connecticut

Yale Univerisity Battles Chapel 

Yale University in memory of Noah Porter

Branford and Saybrook Colleges (Memorial Quadrangle), 1921

James Gamble Rogers (1867-1947, B.A. 1889, M.A., Honorary, 1921) Gate by Samuel Yellin (1885-1940)

The list of buildings James Gamble Rogers designed for Yale between World War I and World War II is almost endless; it is certainly too long to include here. But none is finer than the Memorial Quadrangle, today housing students in Branford and Saybrook Colleges in a Gothic residential complex with six variously proportioned courts that provide a sense of intimacy and grandeur in the shadows of the 216-foot-tall Harkness Tower and behind Samuel Yellin’s masterful iron gate.

Yale University in memory of Leonard Daniels Class of 1907 born  1884 died 1908

Yale University Battles Chapel 

Lovett Room

Yale University Calhoun College 

Yale University

Lawrance Hall, 1885-86

Russell Sturgis, Jr. (1836-1909, M.A., Honorary, 1872)

Between 1869 and 1876, Russell Sturgis completed the troika of Durfee Hall, Battell Chapel, and Farnam Hall at the corner of College and Elm Streets. It was fitting, then, that Sturgis was again tapped for Lawrance Hall, completed in 1886 and adjacent to Farnam on College Street. The layout of Lawrance is almost indistinguishable from those of Durfee and Farnam, with their brick façades evoking the red-hued Old Brick Row buildings that they replaced. It is, however, the towers and turrets of Lawrance’sCollege Street front that are most memorable.

🏛Visiting Mystic Seaport Village Museum Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic Seaport is the nation’s leading maritime museum. Founded in 1929 to gather and preserve the rapidly disappearing artifacts of America’s seafaring past, the Museum has grown to become a national center for research and education with the mission to “inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.

The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT, and include a recreated 19th-century coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities. The Museum is home to more than 500 historic watercraft, including four National Historic Landmark vessels, most notably the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan, America’s oldest commercial ship still in existence

L.A. Dunton Ship
Built-in 1921, she is the last ship afloat of her type, which was once the most common sail-powered fishing vessel sailing from New England ports. In service in New England waters until the 1930s and Newfoundland into the 1950s. 

Joseph Conrad Rigged Ship
Joseph Conrad is an iron-hulled sailing ship, originally launched as Georg Stage in 1882 and used to train sailors in Denmark. 

Brant Point Lighthouse
Brant Point Light is a lighthouse located on Nantucket Island. The station was established in 1746, automated in 1965, and is still in operation.

Restoring the Charles P. Morgan Ship
Charles W. Morgan is an American whaling ship built in 1841 whose active service period was during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ships of this type were usually used to harvest the blubber of whales for whale oil, which was commonly used in lamps.

Figure Heads
A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration found at the prow of ships largely made between the 16th and 20th centuries.

Thomas Oyster House
Thomas Oyster House is one of the few remaining buildings that could be classified as a typical small northern oyster house. The building was constructed about 1874 at City Point, New Haven, Connecticut, by Thomas Thomas. New Haven once was the largest oyster distribution center in New England; now there is only one oyster-opening shop left in this state, that of the Bloom Brothers in South Norwalk.

Mystic Bank
The office of a shipping merchant is represented on the second floor of the Mystic Bank. In the larger seaports, some merchants specialized in operating ships.

Thames Keel &Ship building Exhibit
The 92-foot keel assembly from the whaleship Thames is set up on blocks in a shed within the Preservation Shipyard. The keel is the “backbone” and the starting point for the construction of a ship and so, displayed along the entire length of the keel, is an exhibit on the process of shipbuilding that takes visitors from the laying of the keel to her launching.

Mystic River Scale Motel 

Visiting Mystic Seaport

Stonington Crew
John Flaherty, president of Friends of Stonington Crew, the nonprofit fundraising support for the team, which receives minimal funding from the school department, thanked everyone in attendance, as well as Mystic Seaport for again hosting the team on its docks. He said the team would not be able to compete at the level it does without the support of its donors.

Roann Florence Western Rig Dragger
Roann is one of the last surviving examples of the fishing vessels that replaced sailing schooners like the Museum’s L.A. Dunton. The eastern-rig draggers originated in the 1920s; indeed, Thomas McManus, who designed the Dunton, was influential in their development.

Mystic Pizza a Slice of Heaven 🍕🍕🍕🍕

Kat and Daisy are sisters and rivals: Kat studies astronomy works at the planetarium in the famous Whaling Museum of The Mystic Seaport, as well as the restaurant, and has been accepted to attend Yale University on a partial scholarship. Daisy just wants to find love through lust while trying to get out of Mystic. Kat is the apple of her Portuguese mother's eye, while Daisy is not because her mother feels she is wilder and is not as goal-oriented as her younger sister.

Mystic Pizza History

THE DAY HOLLYWOOD CAME TO TOWN……

Incredibly, Mystic Pizza caught the eye of screenwriter Amy Jones, who was summering in the area. Ms. Jones chose Mystic Pizza as the focus and setting of her story of the lives and loves of three waitresses. The movie was filmed on location in Mystic and the neighboring towns. “Mystic Pizza was released in 1988 and was a hit, even Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up

Enjoying a slice of Heaven @ Mystic Pizza 🍕🍕🍕