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[ 29 A s we know, Wheeler had traveled in Connecticut in 1847. He there met Henry Austin, an architect of local renown in new Haven, and established an agreement to work with him in an arrangement that allowed him employment at Brunswick as well. Other than correspondence from Wheeler himself, however, there has been no documentation of a working relationship between the two architects. Austin is said to have apprenticed under Ithiel Town and started his own office in 1837. The work he produced during the half-century of his practice reflected the modes of the time and included commissions both public and residential. His practice peaked in the 1850s, so that his office was very much on the upswing when Wheeler worked with him.1 PROjECT FOR A COLLEGE CHAPEL, HARTFORD In September 1847, Wheeler wrote to Leonard Woods of his collaboration with Austin for a project at Hartford: “They talk of erecting a college chapel there and Mr. Austin and myself are I suppose certain of doing it.”2 Perhaps Wheeler’s training with Carpenter led to Austin’s engaging him for this task. It seems, however, that the commission never materialized, as no chapel was erected at what became Trinity College during this period.3 An understanding was apparently reached for some unspecified work “in connection with [the] organ at Trinity” that in 1850 was contracted to Austin. It is unclear, but doubtful, whether Wheeler, who by then was in Philadelphia, remained connected to that job, even though he had lived and worked in Hartford before moving on to Pennsylvania. In addition to his association with Henry Austin, Wheeler may have hoped his acquaintance with the Reverend Woods would prove helpful in new Haven. In the same correspondence in which he mentioned the college chapel in Hartford (that is, in September 1847), he asked Woods’s help in introducing him to the minister’s peers in the new Haven and Hartford areas. He specifically requested “a few lines of introduction to Dr. Williams” as well as “amongst the professors” in new Haven.4 Dr. John Williams had recently assumed the presidency of Trinity College. Like Woods, his background included several advanced degrees, travel in France and England, and teaching experience. Correspondence during this phase of Wheeler’s career helps us to understand hisownaspirationsandfrustrations.WithhisbackgroundinEnglishEcclesiology, New Haven, Connecticut, 1847–1849 30 ] G E R V A S E W H E E L E R it is not surprising to discover that he had hoped to work on church architecture. Through Reverend Woods, Wheeler sought connections in ecclesiastical and educational worlds. According to correspondence between Woods and Richard Upjohn, Wheeler was introduced not only to Dr. John Williams but to Dr. Croswell of the Church of the Advent in Boston, George Sumner, m.d., a professor of botany at Trinity College and vestryman of Christ Church in Hartford,5 and the Rev. Andrew Dunning, a Bowdoin graduate and later minister of the Congregational church in Thompson, Connecticut.6 There has been no evidence to suggest that any commissions resulted from these introductions. In fact, this correspondence postdates Wheeler’s departure from Brunswick in 1848, and, as we shall see, Woods cited these clerics as people who would give negative assessments of the architect’s reliability. Wheeler’s few known ecclesiastical works came from other commissioners. It was also at this time that Wheeler apparently hoped to establish contacts through Sir Charles Wesley in London. The letter from Wesley in August of 1848 is an obvious response to a plea from Wheeler for assistance: “I regret exceedingly,” wrote Wesley, “that I have no personal acquaintance with any of the Bishops or Clergymen of the Episcopal Church in America or it would have given me sincere gratification to have served you in any way by such introductions . . . , but I will make every endeavor to procure you some amongst my clerical friends.”7 It would seem that nothing came of this. Wheeler attempted to convince the Bowdoin College committee and Upjohn of the appropriateness of a more current mode of design for the Chapel. At that point he must have had great hopes of disseminating his firsthand knowledge of the recent innovations in church architecture and decoration associated with Pugin, Carpenter, and the Cambridge Camden Society. In a letter he denounced the design of one church that Austin’s office was completing at the time as being “of a character that I am glad to have escaped any connection with.” It...

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