Chapter IV Brimfield Gardens

Brimfield Gardens was a planned development of the land on Brimfield Road, Clearfield Road, the south side of Dale Road and Wolcott Hill Road between Dale Road and Brimfield Road.

Five maps were filed with the Town Clerk of Wethersfield:
1) Brimfield Gardens Filed 12/14/21
Lots 1-36 on Brimfield Street and Wolcott Hill Road [East side of Wolcott Hill Road]

2) Brimfield Gardens Add. Filed 4/1/25
Dale Road, Clearfield Road and Brimfield Street

3) Brimfield Gardens Add. Filed 4/1/25
Lots 37-140 and 120A-120B-1221A-121B Wolcott Hill Road-Dale Road- Clearfield Road- Brimfield Street

4) Brimfield Gardens West Filed 11/9/27
Lots 143-268 Brimfield Street and Clearfield Road [from Brimfield Gardens Add West to Ridge Road]

The map of Brimfield Gardens Add [ition] referred to in my deed was filed in December 1923 by Lucy and Oscar Isaacson and was bordered:
NORTHERLY - By Dale Road with defined lots on the south side of that street
EASTERLY - By Wolcott Hill Road
SOUTHERLY - By property of the Churchill Brothers along what is now the southerly property line of Brimfield Road houses.
WESTERLY - By property of Lucy E Isaacson or John Isaacson about midway between what is today Folly Brook Boulevard and Edward Street.

The map and several other documents use the name Brimfield "Street" rather than "Road". Brimfield Street itself was laid out with thirteen lots on each side of the street (#s 45-57 on the south side and #s 58 – 70 on the north). Twenty-four of the lots have a fifty-foot frontage and two show a front of seventy-one and five hundredths feet. All of them are one hundred fifty feet deep.

According to the Grantee Index to Land Records in Wethersfield, Connecticut, the vast majority of the property in Brimfield Gardens and Brimfield Gardens Addition was owned by members the Isaacson family -- Charles, Edward, Oscar, and Lucy -- and were purchased from various grantors as early as 1896 continuing into the 1920’s.

Among the properties purchased during that time were "The Robbins Pasture" and "Meadow Island" by Edward Isaacson from Silas Robbins and Andrew Brougher respectively and "The Swamp" by John Isaacson from Eliza S and Lewis H Francis.

There is an Edward A. Isaacson is identified as being a Hartford Trolley Carman in 1910 in "The First 100 Years, Transit to Wethersfield" at the Wethersfield Historical Society. While we cannot be certain that this is the same person, Melissa Josefiak, Assistant Director at the society, says that it was a common pattern for people to obtain professional jobs in larger cities in order to earn money and establish credit before investing in suburban areas.

The "Rate Book List of 1930 - Town of Wethersfield" lists Edward A. Isaacson as owning property on Wells Road listed at $64,695 and taxed $1358.60 and an auto business also on Wells Road listed at $610 and taxed at $12.81

Tax records from the Town of Wethersfield also at the society show that Oscar and Lucy Isaacson lived at 695 Wolcott Hill Road - Lot Number 80 (95 feet by 174.31 feet) of the Brimfield Gardens Addition. The house was sold to Clarence N. Gustafson and Emmy J Olsen in 1946.

The 1930 Rate Book showed Oscar and Lucy paying $671.24 on their listing of $31,965 which included the property at 695 Wolcott Hill Road as well as "Capitol City Lumber" ($1,30/$28.35) on lot numbers 55-59, 65 and 66 and "Atlas Sand and Gravel" ($750) on lot numbers 63, 64, 51 and 52 -- two of the lots that now make up my property.

I found an entry for the lumber company in a 1920 State of Connecticut Comptroller's Report as the recipient of $24,756.40 from the State Park Commission and another mention in Geer’s 1898 Hartford City Directory with the following:
Inc. May 31, 1893, Capitol $10,000, 25 Front St.,
H.W. Fox, Pres & Tr. Timothy Burke Sec'y
Directors - H.W. Fox, John Kimball, Timothy J. Burke
Annual meeting first Tuesday after 2d Monday in June

In addition to corporate information there were listings of individual persons in the directory but no mention of any named Isaacson.

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