Connecticut Soldiers' Orphans Home Records

"In 1864 there was published in Hartford by the press of Williams, Wiley & Waterman a pamphlet entitled: A Plan for the Mental, Moral and Physical Development of Children. An Appeal to the Statesmen and Philanthropist. The Orphans of the War the Children of the State. It was signed by T.S. Gold and possibly was paid for by him.

"The General Assembly accepted the new idea and chartered the Connecticut Soldiers' Orphans' Home in May 1864. Various locations were considered and a site of twenty acres on Prospect Hill in Cornwall had been accepted when Edwin Whitney of Mansfield, 'who had nearly completed a fine large building for a boys' school, offered this building with the farm of fifty acres, all valued at $12,000 or $15,000, as a gift to the Home.' Edwin Whitney conveyed by deed, title to the property to the Connecticut Soldiers' Orphans' Home, 24 September 1866. Mr. Gold was the first, and apparently the only, secretary of the Home during its existence from October 1866 to May 1875.

"Even orphans grown up, and in 1875 the Home closed its doors, having first and last provided a home and schooling and religious training in plenty to some two hundred or more orphans of Connecticut men who lost their lives in the Civil War."

[Source: Walter Stemmons, Connecticut Agricultural College-A History, p. 31]