SILENT GROUNDS COLLECTIVE · A NONPROFIT EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVEVisit SGC
SGC Digital ArchivesA Connecticut Non Profit Archive
All collections/Wethersfield in 1940: warehouse, meetinghouse and home

Hartford COUNTY · Places & community

Wethersfield in 1940: warehouse, meetinghouse and home

A small group of federal photographs connects three different kinds of place: the Cove Warehouse, First Church of Christ and Simeon Belden House.

Historical focus · 1890s–1962, with earlier context

Explore the photographs Read the story
1. Historic American Buildings Survey (Fed.) Stanley P. Mixon, Photographer July 29, 1940 (B) EXTERIOR GENERAL VIEW FROM SHORE (EAST) END - Old Warehouse, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT
1. Historic American Buildings Survey (Fed.) Stanley P. Mixon, Photographer July 29, 1940 (B) EXTERIOR GENERAL VIEW FROM SHORE (EAST) END - Old Warehouse, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT · July 29, 1940

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPHS

People, places, and change.

Three views of community life

On July 29, 1940, photographer Stanley P. Mixon documented buildings in Wethersfield for the Historic American Buildings Survey. The selected records include the Old Warehouse, First Church of Christ and Simeon Belden House. Seen together, these photographs offer a compact visual route through working, civic and domestic architecture. They record twentieth-century views of older buildings, not photographs made when those buildings were new. [1] [2] [3]

The warehouse survives into another century

The Wethersfield Historical Society treats the Cove Warehouse’s early date as uncertain: it is traditionally assigned to the late seventeenth century but may be an eighteenth-century building. Its later history is clearer. Around the 1890s and early twentieth century Charles Hanmer used it as a fish house. Restoration followed in 1934; the 1936 flood dislodged it from its foundation, and prisoners from the nearby state prison helped return it to a repaired base. It became a historical society museum in 1962. [4]

Preserving differences

The warehouse, church and house have different forms and uses. Their photographs allow comparison without collapsing them into a single generic image of an “old New England town.” Keep the individual captions and survey identifiers in view. The house’s catalog gives 1767 as its construction date, whereas the photographs themselves belong to a much later act of documentation. [1] [2] [3]

Sources & further reading (4)
  1. Library of Congress: Old Warehouse, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT
  2. Library of Congress: First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT
  3. Library of Congress: Simeon Belden House, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT
  4. Wethersfield Historical Society: The Cove Warehouse

Keep the sources close.

Download this collection’s notes, timeline and image credits. Photographs link to their original archives and require an internet connection.

Download collection notes

Building dates and photograph dates are recorded separately. Later photographs are identified in their captions; unknown exposure dates remain unknown. Follow each image’s credit and reuse terms.