100 Main Street - Truman Sanford House

1855-1869 Italianate Victorian Style

With a broad hipped roof, generous overhanging eaves, tall windows and a wraparound veranda porch, this home exhibits many classic elements of the Italianate Victorian style.

Truman Sanford was born in 1829 on the family farm on Lovely St in Avon, the son of Jesse and Almira (North) Sanford. He partnered with Frank A. Tryon, forming the Tryon and Sanford grocery, which operated on the first floor of the Tryon building (burned and rebuilt 1870 as the present Evening Star Lodge #101, AF&AM, [Masonic Hall] building, 22 Main Street). Truman married Emily Woodford, daughter of Henry and Huldah (Andrus) Woodford of (West) Avon. Together they raised Marion Hawley, whose father, Robert Augustus Hawley, died in the Civil War, Battle of Antietam. Marion Hawley married Truman’s nephew, Franklin (“Frank”) Sanford, who associated with his brother-in-law, Robert Hawley, in 1885 to form Sanford and Hawley Lumber Company (on Farmington Avenue). Along with his grocery business, Truman acted as postmaster, was a stockholder in the Unionville Parsonage Association (Congregational Church) and had an interest in Frederick Crum’s saw manufacturing business.

Truman purchased the land from Joshua Brewer’s property on 9/27/1855 (FLR 53-526). The structure is not depicted on the 1855 Smith’s Map of Hartford County, and land records do not show a mortgage dating the house. This may be due to the logging and lumber business of his older and younger brothers, Edmund (father of Frank) and Sherman Sanford.