MIDDLETOWN — A new Images of America book about the history of Wesleyan University and the street it dominates was a meticulously researched labor of love for its coauthors, they said.
Middletown municipal historian Deborah Shapiro and East Hampton architect Alain Munkittrick, a 1973 graduate of Wesleyan, teamed up on “Middletown’s High Street & Wesleyan University,” a 12-month-long intensive project published in this year.
Shapiro, retired 10-year executive director of the Middlesex County Historical Society, has contributed to several other Images of America books, including “Legendary Locals of Middletown,” co-authored by Robert and Kathleen Hubbard.
Munkittrick wrote his senior thesis on the Samuel Russell House, which can be found at the corner of Washington and High streets. He was the only student named to the Wesleyan Landmarks Advisory Board, set up to help the college learn how to care for and restore its historic properties, he said. That piqued his interest even further.
It took close to a year to research, gather photos, and edit the 127-page volume, chock full of details discovered through land records, area libraries, and online and other sources. “For me, that was the most enjoyable aspect, to learn even more about High Street,” Munkittrick said.
The architect’s biggest asset was in describing the buildings, Shapiro said. “My strength was bringing my lawyerly skills in the title searching, and going back and putting the pieces together.”
That was necessary because the properties there now used to be much larger parcels situated in a rural, agriculture area, she said.
“When you get into the early 1800s, late 1700s, it gets a little dicey, because the descriptions are ‘this is the Pearce place by the oak tree,’ which, of course, the oak tree met its demise many years ago,” Shapiro said.
Materials at Wesleyan’s Special Collections & Archives, the Middletown Room at the Russell Library, and the historical society’s own extensive collection were among items used for research.
Over the course of five chapters, consisting of dozens upon dozens of historical photographs, the authors tell the story of the once highly regarded road, home to “Wesleyan Row,” the group of brownstone buildings at the center of the block. Its scope covers the area from Washington Street south to Warwick Street.
The writers were constrained by the Images of America parameters, which allowed for no more than 70 words per caption, Shapiro said. “We encountered a lot of stories that didn’t make it into the book. We chose the [photos] that were the most compelling, and would tell the most complete story, because we were starting with the settlement of the street in the late 1600s, early 1700s,” when photography hadn’t been invented yet.
Most illustrations from that era are paintings.
High Street is perched high on a hill, hence its name, and once afforded people a sense of prestige and sweeping view of the Connecticut River, now mostly obstructed by buildings, trees and other obstacles.
Many stories couldn’t fully fit into the book, the authors said. For instance, the Rev. Enoch Huntington, minister of First Church, which used to occupy High Street, headed the parish during the Revolutionary War, Shapiro said. His brother Samuel signed the Declaration of Independence from Connecticut. “He was the first president of the Continental Congress,” Munkittrick said.
Samuel Huntington’s daughter Mary married Matthew Talcott Russell, cousin of Samuel Russell. Their son, William Huntington Russell, became a distinguished general, Shapiro said. He and Alphonso Taft, father of President William Howard Taft, founded the Skull and Bones Society at Yale University in New Haven.
A generation later, president Taft and William Huntington Russell’s son courted another woman named Mary. Taft lost out, Shapiro said. Mary was the great-grandmother of Jill Hunting, a writer from California, who discovered she was a descendant of Enoch Huntingon.
Hunting later visited Middletown, and she and Shapiro spent an afternoon talking about her ancestors. One day, Shapiro was watching the Ken Burns series on the Vietnam War, and saw Hunting’s name run quickly through the credits.
Shapiro wondered what her contribution was to the movie. Hunting’s brother, Pete Hunting, a 1963 graduate of Wesleyan, had become a civilian aid worker in Vietnam. It turned out he was the first American non-military member killed in the Vietnam War, Shapiro said.
Shapiro spent a great deal of time in the town clerk’s office, deep in the basement’s vault — so much so that workers joked they should name the room after her. There, records turned up family names, which the two used to search newspapers online, Munkittrick said. “That added a lot of flavor to the story and rounded out the picture of who these people were, what their occupations were, how they may have been related to other families on the street,” he said.
That process was a lot of fun, said Munkittrick, who found a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Charles and Amelia H. Vinal (whom the state technical school is named for) among the cemetery records compiled on the Find a Grave site. Since every illustration can only be used with permission, he discovered the owner just so happens to live down the road from him.
“This person could be anywhere in the world, and it turns out, she’s a descendant of the Vinals and she lives in East Hampton,” said Munkittrick, who spent an afternoon talking to her about the family history.
Munkittrick calls High Street a “museum of American architectural building styles, ranging from the early 18th century through to modern day. Among them Greek Revival, Italianate, stick style, Second Empire, Gothic Revival and Eclecticism. “All those styles you can find a great example of on High Street,” he said.
The 127-page book, printed by Arcadia Publishing, is available at area bookstores, including Wesleyan R.J. Julia Bookstore, at 413 Main St.; the historical society, 151 Main St., by calling 860-346-0746; Arcadia Publishing, Amazon.com, as well as other online retailers. All proceeds go to the historical society.
