Hartford House

The Hartford House that sets adjacent to the Historical Society Museum is a restoration of a prefabricated house that the early settlers brought to Manhattan in 1855 on the steamboat. Reports sent back east to forthcoming settlers warned them that building materials were scarce in this prairie land, so innovative engineers manufactured these “prefab” homes so that they could be loaded on the steamboats and provide instant housing wherever they landed.

The prefabricated houses consisted of six pieces – four walls and two roof sections – with the doors and windows preinstalled. This particular Hartford House (so named for the steamboat that brought the houses) was discovered when later residents were tearing an old house down and as they were removing the exterior walls they found that there was a another wall structure within which was then revealed to be a complete four-walled enclosure.