Henry Austin: In Every Variety of Architectural Style

Notes

notes introduction (pp. 1–6) 1. The Austin family monument is in the Grove Street Cemetery. It was most likely designed by the architect. It contains the names of his first wife, Harriet M. Hooker (1808–1835), and three of their children, as well as the names of three other children by his second wife, Jane Hempstead (d. 1895). George Dudley Seymour added Austin’s name in the twentieth century. Four children reached adulthood: Willard F. (who moved to New Jersey), Henry F. (d. 1894), David J. (d. 1912), and Fred D. (d. 1907). See Austin’s New Haven probate records, 1891– 1892. Fred joined his father in practice and carried on the office for a few years after his death. David is listed as a harness maker in the 1890s. He died in an almshouse. Henry appears in directories of the 1890s as a car maker at the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. He seems to have lived with his mother. (Vital Records, Connecticut State Library.) 2. Hartford Courant, 31 July 1841. 3. George Dudley Seymour, New Haven, New Haven, CT: privately printed, 1942, 219–230; article in the Yearbook of the Architectural Club of New Haven, West Haven, CT: Church Press, 1923, n.p.; and Researches of an Antiquary, New Haven: privately printed, 1928. 4. My thanks to James Campbell and Amy Trout of the New Haven Museum and Historical Society for the copy of the photo reproduced here. The original, taken by Hayes of New Haven, is in the possession of the Rev. Kenneth Walsh of Kingston, New York, an Austin descendant. The wig may or may not reflect vanity. Many architects work into advanced age, and some—especially those with small offices—try to fudge a bit when it comes to counting the years and showing the long passage of time. When he was pushing ninety, Barry Byrne, formerly a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park, Illinois , lied about his age in reference works because, he told me, he did not want clients to think he might drop dead in the middle of a project. Perhaps Austin had something similar in mind. 5. Obituary in the New Haven Evening Register, 17 December 1891. Research at the New Haven Free Public Library and the New Haven Museum and Historical Society produced no information about this post. Austin is not mentioned as an office holder in the city’s annual reports, nor is an office of that title named. The notice of his firm in Leading Business Men of New Haven County (Boston: Mercantile Publishing Company, 1887, 169) does not mention it. 6. New Haven Register, 28 November 1887. See also the Register for 8 March 1881 and 16 January 1883. 7. Leading Business Men, 169. Austin’s death certificate in the Bureau of Vital Statistics , New Haven, gives Hamden, Connecticut , as his place of birth, Daniel Austin and Ada Dorman as his parents, and 17 December 1891 as the date of his death. He was just over eighty-seven years old and died of acute bronchitis. 8. Edward E. Atwater, History of the City of New Haven to the Present Time, New York: W. W. Munsell & Co., 1887, 536–537. John B. Kirby, Jr. (American National Biography, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 760– 761) is more precise, giving 7 January 1837 as the day Austin opened his office in New Haven. That was indeed the date Austin first published an ad in the local newspaper. 9. New Haven Evening Register, 17 December 1891, front page. I have garnered a great deal of information about Austin and his work from the New Haven newspapers, but there is much more research to be done in that rich mine of reportage. 10. See Mary N. Woods, From Craft to Profession, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 11. See note 3. 12. Roger Hale Newton, Town & Davis, Architects, New York: Columbia University Press, 1942, 253. 13. See the Autobiography of James Gallier Architect, New York: Da Capo Press, 1973. 14. “Public Libraries,” The New Englander 1 (July 1843), 311. I owe this reference to Sarah Allaback. 15. “Dear Sir, This will be delivered to you by Mr. Henry Austin an Architect of this city [New Haven]. I have a very high opinion of Mr. Austin’s taste and talents in the profession , and you will confer particular favor on me by showing him your drawings—and by any other attention...