Mark Twain's City — Hartford was America's wealthiest per-capita city in the 1880s, Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in his Victorian Gothic mansion on Farmington Avenue, and the Wadsworth Atheneum is America's oldest public art museum
Hartford is the capital of Connecticut — a compact New England city on the Connecticut River that was the wealthiest per-capita city in the United States for much of the 1870s–1890s, driven by insurance, precision manufacturing, and the Colt firearms factory. The Wadsworth Atheneum (opened 1842) is America's oldest public art museum in continuous operation and holds one of the finest collections of Hudson River School paintings, Baroque and Impressionist works, and American decorative arts outside New York. The Mark Twain House (Farmington Ave, Victorian Gothic, 1874) is where Samuel Clemens…
Hartford's Dutch traders established a small trading post (House of Hope) here in 1633 on the Connecticut River — the English settled it as Hartford in 1635, making it one of the oldest cities in the United States. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639), drafted partly in Hartford, is considered the first written constitution in North American history. In the 19th century, Hartford became the centre of the American insurance industry (Hartford Insurance, Aetna, Travelers, and Cigna all trace their origins to the city) and the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company (established 1855…