Photo Archivist's Selection of the Month: February 2009

Blacksmiths in Stamford

Downtown Stamford

Hugh Neill at West Main Street at Bank Street
West Main Street at Bank Street, 1895
Hugh Neill standing on top at center / Jack Mahoney 4th from right

1892 city directory ad, Hugh Neill
1892 ad in the city directory

H. Nelson, Horseshoer
opposite West Park Street, 1907

Palmer and Bates, Horseshoeing, Atlantic Street

another view of the above photo, including a section of St. John's Roman Catholic Church The caption to another version of this photo including a section of St. John's Roman Catholic Church, on page 2 of Carl Lobozza's "Journey in Time," reads:

The site for St. John's Roman Catholic Church was purchased in 1870 from Andrew Jackson Bell for $12,500 by a fast increasing congregation composed mainly of Irish immigrants. Construction was begun and the first service conducted in the basement on Thanksgiving Day, 1875. The dedication services were held 30 May 1886. The small frame building at center, here occupied in part by Palmer and Bates, later housed the Seeley and Adams bicycle shop which was sold to John E. and Joseph A. Mechaley in August 1897. The Mechaley brothers, who later established Stamford's first automobile agency, worked as printers for the "STAMFORD HERALD" from 1887 to 1888 and the "TOWN CRIER" from 1889 to 1892 when they opened their first bicycle shop at 82 Main Street near Summer Street. (Italics ours)

In the 1892 city directory, a C.D. Wright carriage maker is listed, on Stillwater Road. We have a 1920 photo labeled Luther M. Wright Blacksmith Shop, but it seems to have been a carriage shop too earlier on. Carl Lobozza's "Journey Through Time, 19071, Page 40, has this text:

"Built in 1790 as the fourth meeting house of the Congregational Church, this building stood at Atlantic Square for 68 years and was the first church in Stamford to have a steeple and provision for heating. It was moved to Gay Street in 1858 and used for some time by the Phoenix Carriage Company." (Editor's note: I wonder how they moved this building!)

Luther M. Wright blacksmith shop on Gay Street

Gay Street is now under the Landmark complex and the Stamford Town Center (map).

James Burns
North Stamford/Long Ridge

Other Photo Archivist Selections of the Month
Photo Collection Information