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Views of the Renovated Hartford Public High School
2008

The school's original 1883 Owl, carved in the studio of Albert Entress in Hartford was removed from the building during the renovations in April, 2006.
He was taken down by the firm of Beij, Williams & Zito, given a sealer, and stored in their Hartford facility.

The 1883 Owl is a rare piece.  Although many figures have been carved in brownstone, carvings of animals and birds are quite rare.  Because of its age and the porosity of the stone, our Owl is too fragile to be returned to the exterior of the building.  Thus, replicas have been provided for the gables.

Finally, on January 6, 2010, the Owl and his 1963 pedestal were placed high on the south wall of the new main lobby.  After 126 years, he has finally come inside. 

HPHS has Four Academies.  Each has its own office and faculty.

Freshman Academy:  Tori Niles, Principal

Nursing Academy:  David Chambers, Principal

Engineering & Green Technology: Jill Carey, Principal

Law & Government:  Adam Johnson, Principal

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The Main Number for the school:  695-1300

Webmaster of this Site:        hphsweb@yahoo.com 

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The HPHS Museum & Archive

The HPHS Museum & Archive is a Unique Feature of the Renovated HPHS.  It is the Only One of Its Kind in a Public High School.  The Collections Include:  Antique School Furniture, Paintings, Photographs, Statuary, and Historical Documents.

There are a number of surplus classbooks available for some years.  

If you are interested in a classbook or would like to visit the Museum, please contact Mr. Williams by email or telephone:

  hphs55@aol.com or

hphs55@sbcglobal.net 

 Museum telephone:  695-1405

General View of the Museum

Looking into the Archive

"The Horsemen Frieze"
Plaster Cast

  Gift of Bob Saunders, 2006
Formerly in the Art Room of HPHS Hopkins Street, 1883-1963

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Elizabeth Abbe, Director of Public Outreach and Organizational Advancement at the Connecticut Historical Society, donated her grandfather's clock to the HPHS Museum.  George C. Abbe taught shop work at HPHS for many years.  In 1944, he constructed the clock using Liberian mahogany for the upper part and bonnet.  The wood was given to him by a night school student who had been a medical missionary in West Africa.

Elizabeth Abbe and R. J. Luke Williams

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The Stuart Munro-Lenox George Washington

This large oil painting was displayed for over forty years at the second floor landing of the main stairwell/ flagpole entrance.  It is our last major painting that requires restoration, a project that will cost approximately $17,000. 

Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) has been called the “Father of American Portraiture,” and in 1795 he began painting portraits of George Washington from life.  One of his original portraits of our first president is owned by the Raymond E. Baldwin Museum of Connecticut History and is on display at the Old State House in Hartford .  It was painted in 1801 and it is called a “Munro-Lenox” version for the following reasons.  Peter Jay Munro, nephew of Supreme Court Justice John Jay, commissioned Gilbert Stuart to do a full-length portrait of Washington .  Munro met Stuart in New York and posed in his uncle’s court robes in order for Stuart to finish the portrait.  James Lenox bought the portrait in 1845 from Munro’s descendants and through Lenox it eventually came to the New York Public Library. 

Three replicas of this painting, two for the state of Rhode Island and one for Connecticut were painted from this portrait by Stuart himself, and these are well documented.  The Connecticut portrait in the Old State House is the only Washington portrait to be seen in its original setting, and it is registered in the National Portrait Gallery Collection as CT 140074.

The Hartford Public High School painting is the one that was commissioned for the New Haven State House when Connecticut had two capitals.  In a newspaper article probably from 1879 we read that the original at the state capitol building in Hartford was being restored by Captain T. F. Burke at his studio on Asylum Street .  Reference is made to our painting:  “The Washington portrait which hangs in the alderman’s chamber in the City Hall (Old State House) is a copy of the one at Captain Burke’s rooms.  This copy was made by Stuart himself.”  This is doubtful.   As of 2007, the real painter of the portrait is still unknown.  It is not an original Stuart.

The painting measures 96” x 60,” and with the frame it measures 116” x 79.”

Principal L. Henry Taylor (1962-1967) and Mrs. Taylor cleaned the HPHS painting themselves. It was restored and given a linen backing by the Adam C. Wasicki Art Center in Middletown sometime before May, 1964. For a few years, it was displayed over Alma Goldstein’s desk in the main office of the Broad Street Building until 1963 when it narrowly escaped the wrecker’s ball and was brought to the Forest Street Building and placed at the second floor landing of the main stairwell.

The painting was given a plexiglass cover to protect it from vandalism, and during the forty-two years the painting was in this location the cover’s surface deteriorated from the dust and bright morning sunlight coming through the huge stairwell windows.  As a result, it was very difficult to appreciate the beauty of the painting.  In June, 2005, the painting was removed and transferred to the Mark Twain House & Museum storage facility as a temporary measure while the school was being renovated. 

Hartford Public High School ’s George Washington has been registered in the National Portrait Gallery/ Smithsonian Institution Catalog (July, 2009), and once restored it will be placed over the fireplace mantel (from the Hopkins St. Main Office) in the Lewis Fox Memorial Library Media Center . 

As of January, 2009, $2,000 has been raised for the restoration of this fine painting.  We are applying for grants under the sponsorship of the HPHS Alumni Association, a 501 (c) (3) organization incorporated under the laws of the State of Connecticut in 1889.  The Association is empowered to receive bequests for any purpose connected with the school.

Donations for the restoration of George Washington are greatly appreciated.  If you would like to help, please make your check out to "HPHS Alumni Association/Archive Fund," and note "GW Restoration."

The CLASS OF 1945 donated $1,000 toward the restoration on January 10, 2009.  This is an enormous boost for which we are most grateful.

Please send the check  to the following address:

R. J. Luke Williams, Archivist
HPHS Museum
55 Forest Street
Hartford, CT   06105

         The Joseph Hall Observatory and Charles W. Walker Planetarium

Joseph Hall, Principal of the Hartford Public High School from 1874 to 1893, collaborated with architect George Keller in the design of the school building which replaced the 1869 building designed by George Gilbert after it was destroyed by fire in 1882.

The building which Keller designed stood at 39 Hopkins Street and was a “school which in architectural beauty and in completeness of equipment was far in advance of its time.  This was particularly true in regard to the facilities for teaching science.”  The school had a chemistry laboratory and a science lecture hall that surpassed those of most colleges and all public schools in that day.  It was during Hall’s principalship that the school became a leading high school for science in the United States .

The observatory housed the Alvan Clark telescope, a fine instrument produced by the firm of Alvan Clark and Sons in the 1880’s. Clark began creating telescopes in Ashfield , Massachusetts in the 1840’s, and the 26-inch lens at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington , D.C. is one of his larger works. Almost every large observatory in America and many throughout Europe housed Clark telescopes. The school’s telescope is one of the scientific treasures of the Hartford Public High School and it is part of a collection of late 19^th and early 20^th Century science equipment, particularly for Physics classes, which has been saved over the years. 

The observatory and telescope would have been lost if it had not been for the combined efforts of students and faculty who worked to have them preserved. In an effort which began in 1958, teachers Harold W. Gale, Charles W. Walker, and  students Ernest Mackinnich, ’65, William Domler, ’65, Tom Walsh, ’60, and Donald C. Johanson, ’61, succeeded in saving the observatory and telescope from the wrecking ball.  The observatory and telescope were placed atop the new Forest Street building in 1963.

“The Clark was saved when Mr. Walker told me there were plans to accommodate it in the new high school.  Tom Walsh (’60)…and I organized a campaign to save the telescope.  We attended board of education meetings and spoke out, solicited letters from astronomers at eastern universities and wrote letters to the editor at the Courant.” (Donald Johanson, '61, email, June 15, 2007).

In the mid-1960’s a planetarium was added to the school.  Charles W. Walker, a science teacher appointed to direct the planetarium, developed interesting programs which were presented to the school community for over twenty years.  In particular, the planetarium was popular with elementary school teachers who brought their classes to HPHS for planetarium shows.

Unfortunately, both the Joseph Hall Observatory and the Charles W. Walker Planetarium fell into disuse in the 1980s, victims of budget cuts at the Hartford Board of Education.  However, during the recent renovations the observatory dome was repaired. 

It would be to the school system’s benefit and a plus to the City of Hartford ’s future to return these renowned and valuable resources into the school curriculum.

Amit Chowdhury of 4BizGroup in Plainville generously gives his time and assistance to help maintain this website.  We are very grateful to be able to learn from his expertise.

Last Updated:
02/04/2010

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