Charles Pond bred prize-winning race horses at Prospect Hill Farm. Sulky racing was a very popular weekend sport at that time. There was a racetrack on the property near where the rose garden park grows today. Charles was also very interested in firearms and was friendly with Samuel Colt. He had an extensive gun collection. When it was time to call in the hired help for supper, instead of ringing a bell, Charles would go out on one of the porticos of the house and blow off a gun! What a dinner bell!

Elizabeth Pond

We know very little about Elizabeth because women were mostly in the background during the 19th century. She was a lovely, little lady with big, brown eyes and dark hair which was fashionably pulled back from her face. The only written document about Elizabeth is her obituary. It describes her as charitable, active with her church, and a good friend. Charles and Elizabeth were never blessed with any children, but loved and spent a lot of time with their nieces and nephews.

This was the time of the Industrial Revolution. Cities were booming with business, and Hartford was no exception. Hartford was crowded, dirty, and smoky, as the fuel of the day was coal. The streets were not all paved, and there was no mass transit yet, so the folks who worked at all the factories were really stuck in the city when they had a day off. Sanitation was not good, either, and people were always getting sick. Frederick Law Olmsted, aHartford native, saw the plight of all the city dwellers and wanted to give them a better life.

City Parks

Olmsted was the father of the American park movement, and as a landscape architect, he created pastoral places within metropolitan areas with sweeping vistas and trees and lawns, so that the city dwellers would have a peaceful, beautiful spot to retreat to. Bushnell Park in Hartford was the first municipal park to open in the United States, and although Olmsted did not design it, he was consulted on its construction.

The park was so well received by the residents of Hartford that it gave a local minister an idea. His name was the Reverend Francis Griffin, and he was a cousin of J. P. Morgan. He thought that if some of the really wealthy landed gentry who made their money in Hartford would donate their property to the city upon their demise, there would be a lot more park land to be had. So, he went calling on the Ponds, the Colts, the Popes, and other folks and told them about his idea.

Charles had wondered up until that point what he would do with his farm, as he could not sell it. What Reverend Griffin said sounded like a good idea to him. Elizabeth passed away in 1891 at the age of 50, and Charles followed in 1894 at the age of 57. He had amassed quite a fortune over the years, and left a lot of money to his brother, his sister, and to his nieces and nephews. He left Prospect Hill Farm to the city of Hartford. Plus another $165,000 for the purchase of more land and for building.

Elizabeth Park

He wished that the property would become a botanical park named for his beloved wife, Elizabeth. Charles brother contested the will, and thus began four years of two different law suits. By 1897, Hartford was pretty sure they would win the property, so they began looking for a landscape architect to build Elizabeth Park. They finally settled on Theodore Wirth.

Theodore Wirth was Swiss-born, raised, and educated. He took some of his training at Kew Gardens. He came to the states and studied under Olmsted, who had a project on Long Island at the time. Wirth came to Hartford, and began to design the rose garden. The original rose garden was a 1 ? acre square. Theodore started with 100 beds and a thousand roses, some of which we still have today.

He built arches for rambling roses radiating out from the center of the garden, where he had built a raised area (to improve drainage) with a rustic rose house (gazebo) on top. The garden opened to the public in the spring of 1904, much to the delight of the locals, and has been a destination ever since. Additions were added to the north and south sides of the garden, and today our garden is 2 ? acres with about 650 varieties of 15,000 roses! Visit us at elizabethpark.org and on Facebookor just come and Ill give you a tour!