Charlotte Isham

By Alexandra Maravel

“What’s in a name?” Juliet Capulet asks in act 2 of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. “That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet” (The Folger Shakespeare, scene 2, lines 46–47). Juliet is arguing that family names, those that keep her and her beloved apart, are mere obstacles.

Miss Charlotte Terry Isham of 211 High Street in Hartford answered that question very differently in 1978. When the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office applied to list her family home on the National Register of Historic Places that year as the “Roberts–Isham House,” Miss Isham opposed the nomination. Through her attorney, she informed the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places of her many objections to the nomination application. One of those objections was the proposed name. To Miss Isham, the name “Roberts” was unimportant. Her attorney argued that the Isham and Terry families were responsible for the fine, well-furnished residence at 211 High Street, and they should get the credit. To Miss Isham, the name meant everything.

Ebenezer Roberts built the elegant Italianate home in Hartford in 1854. In 1883, he expanded the residence, adding an imposing three-story tower, but by the mid-1890s, the house had fallen into disrepair. Dr. Oliver Isham purchased the property in 1896, restored it, used it for his medical practice, and moved in with his parents and three sisters, Mary, Julia, and Charlotte. Julia and Charlotte lived in the home for the rest of their lives.

As the attorney’s 1978 letter makes clear, her family’s New England lineage was long and of great importance to Miss Charlotte Isham, its last remaining member. She claimed descent on both sides of her family from passengers on the Mayflower, the ship that carried the Pilgrims to New England. She said through her attorney that she was descended from 27 of the founders of Hartford. Her maternal great-grandfather was the well-known clockmaker Samuel Terry, the brother of the more famous Eli Terry, who had patented the first mass-produced clocks in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The director of the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society of Connecticut (now Connecticut Landmarks) wrote to the Keeper of the Register that the brouhaha over the name was a “tempest in the teapot.” He requested that the name be whatever would keep their donor, Miss Isham, happy. So “Isham–Terry” it became.

Today, the public may tour the Isham–Terry House once a month. The house’s furnishings illustrate the lives of the Isham and Terry families, and the wonderful guided tours explain Hartford’s culture, industry, art and architecture, and medical and public health histories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Julia Isham in her 1901 Oldsmobile

Miss Charlotte Terry Isham saw her home as a shrine to her family. There were no more descendants as only one Isham sister, Mary, wed and died without issue. Charlotte and Julia were keepers of a flame that burned brightly for them even as the neighborhood they lived in changed drastically over the years. The family successfully fought the taking of the house by eminent domain for the construction of I-84, which now takes interstate travelers within feet of their former home. They lived with the noise, tumult, and destruction for years. The Isham–Terry House is an island of historic interest because the Isham–Terry family willed their family’s memory into existence. Unlike Juliet Capulet, Charlotte Terry Isham embraced the power of a name.

Alexandra Maravel is an adjunct professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. She wishes to thank Jana Colacino and Lynn Mervosh, site administrators for Connecticut Landmarks, for sharing their knowledge of the Isham–Terry House and helping her explore this part of its history.

Explore!

Isham–Terry House, 211 High Street, Hartford, ctlandmarks.org/properties/isham-terry-house/

Donald Muller, “Everyman’s Time: The Rise and Fall of Connecticut Clockmaking,” Connecticut Explored, ctexplored.org/everymans-time-the-rise-and-fall-of-connecticut-clockmaking/