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.

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.

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.

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,

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...