Grating the Nutmeg

What more do we need to know about Sam Colt? In Hartford we have the iconic blue-domed Colt Armory, Colt Park, the Colt addition to the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Church of the Good Shepard and Colt's home Armsmear. But it turns out that we may not have known much about Colt's life before he became fabulously wealthy—he traveled with a novelty act, womanized, drank, smuggled guns to Russia, bribed politicians, and blew up ships in New York Harbor with electricity.

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, digs into some of these stories with Jim Rasenberger, author of Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-shooter that Changed America.

He is the author of three other books—The Brilliant Disaster; America, 1908; and High Steel—and has contributed to the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, and other publications. A native of Washington, DC, he lives in New York City. Find out more at https://www.jimrasenberger.com/

Coltsville, Sam's industrial village including the Colt Armory, workers housing, and his estate, have been listed as a National Historic Landmark and authorized as a National Historical Park under the guidance of the National Park Service. For more history and self-guided tours, go to their website at nps.gov/colt.

Find out more about Sam Colt in these Connecticut Explored stories:

https://www.ctexplored.org/the-suspicious-colt-armory-fire/

https://www.ctexplored.org/sam-colt-mines-the-arizona-territory-2/

https://www.ctexplored.org/making-a-success-of-coltsville/

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Donohue has documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg received support from the State Historic Preservation Office of the Dept of Economic and Community Development with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

A Connecticut Historian Makes History: Recovering Phyllis Wheatley's Lost Years

UCONN legal historian Cornelia Hughes Dayton was searching through Massachusetts Court cases from the 1700s, working on a project involving mental disabilities in early America, when she came upon a find that was itself history-making: a cache of court cases that illuminate the formerly "missing years" in the life of America's first published African American author and the mother of the African-American literary tradition Phyllis Wheatley Peters. Dayton discusses her discovery of the court cases and their many revelations, as recounted in her just published and prize-winning article Lost Years Recovered: John Peters and Phillis Wheatley Peters in Middleton," New England Quarterly 94 (September 2021): 309-351.

Watch for the release of primary source documents from the "Middleton dossier" on the the Wheatley Peters Project website (forthcoming). Track its progress at the Twitter account #Wheatley_Peters.

Are you your family's historian? The one that listens to all the elders' stories or digs into that big box of old family photographs? Ever wonder how many of your dad's stories are really true? Or if you have a big family secret that hasn't been revealed for generations? If so, this episode is for you! In celebration of National Archives Month, we're talking to two accomplished family historians.

Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, the state's history magazine, interviews author Jill Marie Snyder. Snyder has a B.A. in Urban Studies from the University of Connecticut and an M.A. in Communication from Fairfield University. Retired from a corporate career in the insurance industry, she's completed Boston University's Principles of Genealogy course. Her book Dear Mary, Dear Luther, based on letters written between her parents, won the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Award for Nonfiction Romance/history in 2020. Jill will be teaching a workshop on "Telling Your Family Story, Putting it all together" on Oct 20, 2021 for the Ancient Burying Ground Association and Hartford Public Library. Register for the workshop on the Ancient Burying Ground Association's Facebook page under events.

Our second guest is well-known Hartford Jazz musician and recording artist Orice Jenkins. He studied music at the Hartt School and has released four solo albums including the fantastic Centennial Cole: the Music of Nate King Cole in 2019. He teaches in his hometown of Hartford and tours nationally with the Afro-Semitic Experience. His website features his family history blog Chesta's Children: a Collection of Stories, People, History, Records and Research.

Find out more about our guests at their websites, https://www.jillmariesnyder.com/ https://oricejenkins.com/

Order Snyder's book at https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Mary-Luther-Courtship-Letters-ebook/dp/B0793Q7LTM/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Jill+marie+snyder&qid=1633030224&sr=8-1

For more about family histories, read the stories in Connecticut Explored's Family History issue here https://www.ctexplored.org/fall-2019-family-history-separating-fact-from-fiction/

For more on Connecticut's African American history, visit our Topics page at https://www.ctexplored.org/african-american-history-in-connecticut-2/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Donohue as documented the built environment and pop culture for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]

Subscribe to Connecticut Explored at https://www.ctexplored.org/subscribe/

History has often been described as the present having a conversation with the past. Meet Kevin Johnson, who makes those conversations both real and personal: as a Technical Assistant in the History and Genealogy unit of the Connecticut State Library in Hartford; as William Webb, a Civil War volunteer in the 29th Connecticut Colored Volunteer infiantry; and as Jordan Freeman, the African American who died a heroes death at the Revolutionary War Massacre at Fort Griswold. It's 250 years of history, all through one person: "The Three Lives of Kevin Johnson."

In this episode, join Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, for a discussion with Dr. Helen Sheumaker about Victorian jewelry and wreaths made from human hair. Dr. Sheumaker is the author of Love Entwined: The Curious History of Human Hair Work. She teaches history and American Studies at Miami University of Ohio.

Find out more about this now unfashionable way to remember your loved ones!

Read Dr. Sheumaker's feature story in the Fall 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored-order your copy at ctexplored.org

And see more about her book here: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Entwined-Curious-History-Hairwork/dp/0812240146/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Love+Entwined&qid=1630356702&sr=8-2

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Donohue has documented Connecticut's built environment and popular culture for over 30 years. Contact her at [email protected]

And our thanks to the Lane Public Library in Oxford, Ohio for providing Dr. Sheumaker with a recording space.

Want to know more about Connecticut's landmarks, museums, art, and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored-in your mailbox or inbox. And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by the Connecticut State Historian at TodayinCThistory.com

What do the nineteenth century author Lydia Sigourney, the 18th century hero-turned-traitor Benedict Arnold, and the Revolutionary War battle of Bunker Hill have in common? They all come together in the story you are about to hear from Sigourney's 1824 book SKETCH OF CONNECTICUT FORTY YEARS SINCE. Sigourney's book, written early in her career, is a rare historical treat: a tale by a future-famous writer, written in 1824, reminiscing about life forty years earlier in 1784. The past remembering the past, in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg.

In this episode, join Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, for a discussion with Pablo Delano, visual artist, photographer and professor of fine arts at Trinity College - and the artist behind the new book Hartford Seen, published in 2020 by Wesleyan University Press. His work is featured in the photo essay "Visually Breathtaking Hartford Explored" in the Summer 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored magazine. Professor Delano's father, Jack Delano, was a renown American New Deal-era photographer for the Farm Security Administration who photographed Connecticut in 1940.

To see more of Pablo Delano's work, visit www.pablodelano.com and look for his new book Hartford Seen wherever you get your books or order here https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/hartford-seen-delano/

For more information on "The Museum of the Old Colony" exhibition, see the exhibit website and exhibition information below:

Official website: www.museumoftheoldcolony.org

Web page from the last iteration of the project at Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture:

https://cadvc.umbc.edu/pablo-delano-the-museum-of-the-old-colony/

Web page from Photoville Festival

https://photoville.nyc/the-museum-of-the-old-colony/

Exhibition catalog from CADVC

https://cadvc.umbc.edu/files/2020/02/Museum-of-The-Old-Colony-2.pdf

Exhibition catalog from Hampshire College

https://sites.hampshire.edu/gallery/files/2018/10/MoOC_catalogue_spreads.pdf

To see more of Jack Delano's work as a photographer for the Federal Security Administration, go to the Library of Congress website at LOC.gov

Jack Delano Photographs, Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/photos/?fa=subject:color%7Ccontributor:delano,+jack

Jack Delano Papers, 1927-1995, Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/item/mm98084274/

To read more about Jack Delano's photographs taken of Connecticut's Jewish farmers, get the book A Life of the Land: Connecticut's Jewish Farmers available from the Greater Hartford Jewish Historical Society on their website at https://jhsgh.org/

This episode was produced by Mary Donohue, Assistant Publisher of Connecticut Explored, and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Contact Donohue at [email protected]

Want to know more about Connecticut's landmarks, museums, art, and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored-in your mailbox or inbox. And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by the Connecticut State Historian at TodayinCThistory.com

In this special summer episode we visit Frank and Lisa Catalano, who in their 18th-century home garden in Lebanon, are using some very inventive approaches to bring back an old Connecticut tradition – self-sufficient food production. It's a history show for garden geeks . . . or maybe a garden show for history geeks.

In this episode, Dr. Leah Glaser and students from her 2021 Public History class at Central Connecticut State University present stories about the state's witness trees — a project that evolved out of a semester-long class on local and community history. Trees are central characters in the state's history, myths and legends. They witnessed the changing environmental, political, social, economic, and cultural landscape for decades and even centuries. What's a witness tree, you ask? Find out in this episode of Grating the Nutmeg.

Find Dr. Glaser's article about witness and memorial trees in the Spring 2021 issue of Connecticut Explored online at www.ctexplored.org/trees-as-memorials-and-witnesses-to-history/

Dr. Leah Glaser is a professor at Central Connecticut State University and Coordinator of the Public History Program. Her 2021 class researched tree stories and each student presented one story on the podcast. Contact her at [email protected]

1. Andy King-The Mashantucket Pequots and the rhododendron
2. David Prochorena-Pinchot Oak, Simsbury
3. Helena Torres Diaz-The Witch Tree and the Hartford Witch Trials, Hartford
4. Despina Merriman-Nathan Hale Pear Tree, Coventry
5. Gregory Franklin-Puritans to Patriots (Ye Olde Oak), Easton
6. Cameron Clarke-John Brown's Tree, Torrington
7. Grayson Belisle- Teddy Roosevelt and the McKinley Tree, Farmington
8. Emma Koss-Land Stewardship and the Dewey Oak, Granby
9. Valerie Chase-WWII Patriotism and Arbor Day, Windham
10. Benjamin Johnson-The Old Oak Tree and the Coltsville labor strike, Hartford
11. Kaitlyn Oberndorfer- Blue Cedars and the Rural Cemetery Movement, Hartford
12. Patricia Wallace– The Cypress Tree Mystery at an Olmsted Park, New Haven
13. Garrett Saranich-The Chestnut Oak, Shipbuilding on the Connecticut shoreline, Clinton
14. Ben Haberman- The Black Cherry Tree oversees Seaport to Coastal Gateway, Madison
15. Tom Ieronimo- Of Hickory and Baseball, Hartford

For more information on Hartford's historic trees, go to the Hartford Preservation Alliance website at https://hartfordpreservation.org/ccsu-tree-history/

Find the Connecticut Notable Tree Project at http://oak.conncoll.edu:8080/notabletrees/

Read More!

Connecticut Explored ctexplored.org

https://www.ctexplored.org/site-lines-connecticut-state-parks-at-100/

https://www.ctexplored.org/cherry-trees-for-wooster-square/

https://www.ctexplored.org/wickham-park-in-manchester/

https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-historic-rose-gardens/

Listen

Grating the Nutmeg Podcast

https://www.ctexplored.org/grating-the-nutmeg-115-americas-first-public-rose-garden-elizabeth-park/

Subscribe to our free newsletter at https://www.ctexplored.org/

Want to know more about Connecticut's landmarks, museums, art and history? Subscribe to Connecticut Explored magazine — in print to your mailbox or digitally to your e-mail inbox. Visit ctexplored.org to subscribe. And for a daily dose of history, visit Today in Connecticut History produced by the Office of the State Historian at TodayinCThistory.com.

This episode was produced by Leah Glaser and Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan. Please join us again for the next episode of Grating the Nutmeg!

State Historian Walt Woodward talks with award-winning author and materials scientists Ainissa Ramirez about her award-winning and highly acclaimed book The Alcehmy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another. On virtually every national Top Science Book of the Year List for 2020, The Alchemy of Us is a wonderfully readable, lively, smart and witty account of the development of eight inventions that have not only transformed the way we live, but have transformed us, too. Not surprisingly, half of those inventions have important Connecticut connections.

Ramirez and Woodward discuss the roles Samuel F Morse, Edwin Land, Ansonia's William Wallace and New Haven's George Coy played in creating inventions that have helped the world Convey, See, Capture and Think in new and different ways. It's a fascinating and surprising story fest with one of the science world's best story tellers.