Boat tour highlights lavish history of Thames River's Gilded Age elites
Aug. 4—NEW LONDON — Perhaps the most well-known depiction of the Gilded Age, which lasted from the 1870s to 1890s, is Martin Scorsese's 1993 film "The Age of Innocence" with Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer.
The film features images of the opulence of the time, which was brought on by an industrialization boom that had allowed so-called robber-barons to build grandiose mansions and live lavishly in stark contrast to the woes of the working class.
This historical backdrop for many popular TV shows and movies is the focus of a Thames River Heritage Park boat tour. It embarked from city pier Sunday, taking two residents up and down the river to learn the area's Gilded Age history.
Tour Guide Gail MacDonald, a University of Connecticut journalism professor, pointed to landmarks along the shore, and shared stories of some the region's wealthiest families who resided there.
MacDonald explained to tour takers that's what had captured the attention of writer Mark Twain, when he coined the term "Gilded Age" in a 1873 novel of the same name. She said Twain, who was living in Hartford at that time, had used the term to represent how the immense wealth of the period's elites ― such as the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts ― had gilded, or masked with a veneer the problem of the poorer classes.
For many, the Gilded Age conjures images of cliffside mansions. This tour, called "Well-Heeled and Wannabes: The Gilded Age on the Thames" was a reminder that southeastern Connecticut, too, saw an influx of wealthy families in that time.
About 20 minutes into the tour, with the tour boat was passing New London Harbor Light, MacDonald pointed to homes that were part of the Pequot Colony, where many families spent their summers.
"They would come here to escape the terrible conditions in the big cities," MacDonald said.
She highlighted the Pequot Casino and the site of the Pequot House hotel, prior to burning down, that had hosted numerous famous guests including former U.S. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Chester Arthur.
Then as the boat continued to travel south, MacDonald pointed to Ocean Beach, another summer colony for the rich. Jutting up from the treeline above it was the chimney and green tile roof of Eolia, one of Camp Harkness founders Edward and Mary Harkness's seven homes.
MacDonald had already highlighted the Monte Cristo Cottage on Pequot Avenue, which famously housed and was written about by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill.
Passing State Pier, which is currently piled high with wind turbine parts, MacDonald remarked that before the 1880s, there was no bridge over the Thames River. Train cars had to be dismantled and brought across the river by ferry before the railroad bridge was there.
The U.S. Coast Guard Academy, founded in 1876, also bridged the Gilded Age, MacDonald said.
Then there was the towering gray Branford House in Groton, built in 1902 for Morton Plant, who had inherited his money through his father, a railroad investor.
Greg Johnson of Norwich said the most interesting fact he learned on the tour was that Plant had a hand in formally establishing Connecticut College in 1911. MacDonald said the effort to establish it had started earlier, but it needed money to grow its endowment.
MacDonald said that Plant, after being reeled into serving on the new college's Board of Trustees, had made a donation of $1 million to its endowment to cut short a meeting, because he was going to miss his favorite team's baseball game.
"He was a little bit of an impatient person," she added.
According to MacDonald, Plant had asked board members if he pledged $1 million to the endowment that the meeting could be concluded, and the members rather astonished had accepted.
MacDonald, who has been giving the tour for seven summers, said she enjoyed getting to tell the stories of the people behind the history of the Gilded Age. Another tour is planned for Aug. 25.