The Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood is significant to Hartford's history as it was the site of the original colonial settlement in 1623 as a Dutch trading post. It was here that, in 1636, Thomas Hooker and his colonists laid out house lots.

The greatest influence on the development of Sheldon Charter Oak and South Green was Samuel Colt, inventor of the automatic revolver. In 1855, he began buying up property and established the Colt Firearms Factory, recognizable by its onion dome topped by a rampant colt.

He also built a village so that he workers could live within walking distance to the factory. It included a community house and library. His employees and their families were encouraged to participate in the educational, cultural and sports activities he provided. Of the fifty brick, multi-family structures originally built, ten remain today.

When willow trees began to overrun his property, he decided to open a factory for the production of willow furniture. Hearing that the best willow workers in the world were in Potsdam, Germany, he imported an entire village of workers to his Hartford location, building German-style homes to make the workers feel comfortable. The community became known as Potsdam Village. Several of these houses also remain today.

Samuel Colt is given credit for the naming of several streets in the area where the Colt Firearms Manufacturing Company was located. In doing so, he paid tribute to the Native Americans who made it possible for Hartford to exist, as well as the Dutch who first came to Hartford.

Originally, Samuel Colt's plans to develop the meadows called for six roads, called the South Meadow Highways. They were numbered accordingly, but later changed to street names. Colt honored some of the Native Americans who signed the first or second deeds conveyed the land to the Dutch, as follows:

Sequassen Street (South Meadow Highway No. 5), was named after "Sounckquasson, Sachem of Suckhaig, alias Hartford," who conveyed the land around 1636 by the first deed.

Street named for signers of the second deed (1671) by Native Americans to the Town of Hartford:

Wawarme Avenue (South Meadow Dyke Road Nos. 5 and 6), named after Warwarme, who was referred to as "Wawarme the sister and only heire of Sunckquasson" and referred elsewhere as Sounckquasson, Sachem of Suckhaig, alias Hartford."

Curcombe Street was named after "Curry Combe." Masseek Street named after "Massecup." Weehassat Street (South Meadow Highway No. 4). Referred to in the deed as "Wehas a tucks" or "Wehassatux, squa."

Vanblock Avenue (South Meadow Highway No. 7) named for the Dutch navigator, Adrian Block, who built the yacht Onrust, which made the first voyage up the Connecticut River under the command of Lieut. Hendrixen when the site of Hartford was discovered.

Hendricxen Avenue was named after Cornelius Hendricxen, the lieutenant of the Dutch sloop "Onrust" .

Huyshope Avenue named after Huys de Hoop (House of Hope), the Dutch Fort. Van Dyke Avenue named after the first commander of the Dutch Fort Good Hope, Guysbert Van Dyke.

Vredendale Avenue (South Meadow Highway No. 9) named probably after a plantation called Vrendendale, belonging to a Dutch navigator named DeVries, who visited the Dutch fort in Hartford in 1639.

Nepaquash Street, formerly known as the South Meadow Highway No. 6, was named by the Court of Common Council on September 12, 1910 at the suggestion of Charles W. Gross after the Indian Sachem from whom the Dutch purchased the land. (letter in Courant Sept. 1, 1910).

Upon Colt's death in 1862, his widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, oversaw the firearms business and built the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd as a memorial to her husband and their three children who died in infancy. Architectural details of the structure include a variety of gun parts, such as bullet molds, gunsights and cylinders. This unusual characteristic earns the building the title of likely being the only church in the world with a gun motif. One original architectural element that no longer remains is an ornamental cross that topped the west end of the church. It was removed by the Bishop of Connecticut when it was discovered that the cross was made up of revolvers.

Several years later, Mrs. Colt built nearby the Caldwell Colt Parish House as a memorial to her son who had died at age 36 under mysterious circumstances while yachting off the coast of Florida. The building was designed by Edward T. Potter, the same architect who designed the Mark Twain House. This building also originally had an architectural element that no longer remains – a ship's mast.

In 1874, a tract of land across from the Church of the Good Shepherd was leased by Mrs. Colt to Hartford's base ball club, the Dark Blues. A 500-seat grandstand was built and for the next few years, the cheers of excited fans was heard across the neighborhood. One of the regular patrons was Samuel Clemens. On one occasion, he had his umbrella taken by a lad at the ballpark. Two days after the game, on May 20, 1875, the following ad appeared in the Hartford Courant:

TWO HUNDRED AND FIVE DOLLARS REWARD–At the great base ball match on Tuesday, while I engaged in hurrahing, a small boy walked off with an English-made brown silk UMBRELLA belonging to me and forgot to bring it back. I will pay $5 for the return of the umbrella in good condition to my house on Farmington Avenue. I do not want the boy (in an active state) but will pay two hundred dollars for his remains. —SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.

On the southeastern corner of the park, the newly established Hartford Base Ball Grounds at Colt Meadows hosts vintage base ball games that has teams from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island traveling to Hartford to compete against Connecticut teams using game rules from the 1860s and 1880s.

Also planned for the park is the Hartford Botanic Garden, an18.5 acre area that will utilize some of the outbuildings from the former Colt estate. Already in place is the gift shop specializing in Connecticut-made items.

In 2008, Coltsville was named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Plans are now underway to pursue National Park status. Attaining such status would be a boon to Hartford and the region. Samuel and Elizabeth Colt contributed much not only to Hartford but to the Industrial Age in general with innovative methods of manufacturing, as well as philanthropic efforts. Their mansion, Armsmear, still stands today as does the Colt Armory, the sweeping expanse of park between the two and other architecturally-significant structures in Coltsville that harken to a grander era.

At the intersection of Charter Oak Avenue and Charter Oak Place stands a monument to the Charter Oak Tree, which was over 200 years old when it came down during a storm in 1856. More...

Another Hartford industrialist who made his mark in the neighborhood is George Capewell. In 1881, he invented a machine that efficiently manufactured horseshoe nails, and his success made Hartford the "horseshoe nail capitol" of the world. The buildings of the former Capewell Horsenail Company are currently undergoing renovation, and Capewell Horsenails, Inc. continues to manufacture horsenails at its Bloomfield, CT facility. Both Samuel Colt and George Capewell are interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery,