Wesleyan University Press | Middletown, Connecticut

      Wesleyan University Press

      Middletown CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 2019 Susan Campbell

      All rights reserved

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill

      Typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro

      This book is part of HartfordBooks, a series developed through a partnership of Wesleyan University Press and the University of Hartford, and supported by Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

       wesleyan.edu/wespress/hartfordbooks

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Campbell, Susan, 1959– author.

      Title: Frog Hollow: stories from an American neighborhood / Susan Campbell.

      Description: Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018033857 (print) | LCCN 2018034562 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819578556 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819576200 (cloth: alk. paper)

      Subjects: LCSH: Frog Hollow (Hartford, Conn.)—History—Anecdotes. | Frog Hollow (Hartford, Conn.)—Social life and customs—Anecdotes. | Frog Hollow (Hartford, Conn.)—Biography—Anecdotes. | Hartford (Conn.)—History—Anecdotes. | Hartford (Conn.)—Social life and customs—Anecdotes. | Hartford (Conn.)—Biography—Anecdotes.

      Classification: LCC F104.H3 (ebook) | LCC F104.H3 C27 2019 (print) | DDC 974.6/3—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033857

      5 4 3 2 1

      Title page image: Zion Street at Russ Street. April 6, 1996. Tony DeBonee Collection, Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library

      Dedication page image: Family portrait of Constance Schiavone

      Front cover illustration: Zion Street at Russ Street, April 6, 1996, by Tony DeBonee, courtesy of Hartford History Center.

      FOR CONSTANCE HARTNETT SCHIAVONE, a beautiful Irish colleen—and my mother-in-law—who told the best Hartford stories, ever

       Contents

       AUTHOR’s NOTE | In Which the Author Explains, Why Write a Book? | ix

       INTRODUCTION | In Which the Author Explains, Why Frog Hollow? | xi

       1. THE DIFFICULT DREAM | The Babcocks Dig a Well and Launch a Newspaper | 1

       2. AN OPPORTUNITY FOR EACH | Colonel Pope Comes to Town and Helps Build an Industrial Powerhouse | 10

       3. A DREAM OF SOCIAL ORDER | The Government Segregates a Neighborhood | 39

       4. THE FULLEST STATURE | Original Residents Are Pushed Out, the Neighborhood Gets a Reputation—and Everyone Is Baseball Crazy | 61

       5. TO BE RECOGNIZED | The Children of Frog Hollow Find Champions, and the Newsies Fight Back | 93

       6. EACH MAN AND WOMAN | The Reverend Pennington Is Free | 115

       7. GROWING WEARY AND MISTRUSTFUL | The Neighborhood Gets an Orphanage | 135

       8. THEY ARE INNATELY CAPABLE | Dominick Burns Opens a Bank, and Maria Sánchez Shepherds a Political Force | 139

       9. REGARDLESS OF FORTUITOUS CIRCUMSTANCES | The Ghosts That Walk Frog Hollow’s Streets, and Where They’re Heading | 166

       Acknowledgments | 173

       Notes | 175

       Index | 215

       Author’s Note

      IN WHICH THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS, WHY WRITE A BOOK?

      In 1986 I moved to Connecticut to work for the Hartford Courant, America’s oldest continuously published newspaper—a phrase that still forms itself as one word in my head, even seven years after leaving that job. At the time, Hartford’s better days were behind it, or so I was told. Drug and gang wars held the city by the throat. Schools were struggling. The go-go ’80s appeared to be passing the capital city by.

      But Hartford was so much more than gangs and crime and troubled schools. I know because I was there, and when I was occasionally asked to give speeches in suburban libraries or small-town schools, invariably someone would raise a hand to ask if I went into the big, scary city every day.

      “Only on days I want to be paid,” I would answer, thinking I was giving their tremulous concern just the right amount of disdain.

      I see now how insufferable I was. The

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