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Portland Country Market
by Doris Sherrow, October
1999
In the late 1700s, quarry owner Timothy Russell built himself a large,
comfortable colonial-style house on the lot where Portland Country
Market now stands. Russell's property included a profitable indenture
with an early quarry company - an 1819 lease gave him $10 for each
square rod of property quarried behind the house. When he died in
1840, the house descended to his son, Daniel.
In 1862, Civil War troops were sent off from the Russells' place. Rev.
Samuel Emory of Trinity Church recorded in his diary for August 25:
"Officiated as chaplain in front of Mr. Russell's for the company
raised here, about to leave for New Haven… Presented swords to the
volunteer company at the picnic in Mr. Russell's grounds, and made a
speech with fear and trembling."
When Daniel Russell died in 1869, his occupation was listed as
"care of his own finances," which entailed some $300,000 in
land, buildings and quarry stocks, equivalent to over $20,000,000
today. The house passed to his son Frederick, who had been living
there with his young family for several years.
Frederick eventually moved out of town, and the house became quarry
housing. Toward the end of its days, it was a boarding house called
the "Portland House." In 1929, fire raged through the
building, gutting the interior. Soon after, Timothy Russell's grand
house was razed.
At this point, the property was acquired by Morris Joseloff and his
associates. Joseloff had emigrated from Russia in 1900. With his
brothers, he founded Economy Grocery, which merged with First
National Stores in the early 1900s. He made tremendous profits,
which he plowed back into his adopted country. He donated millions to
Brandeis University, Yale School of Medicine, Wadsworth Athenium, and
the Joseloff Gallery of Art at the University of Hartford.
In various towns around Connecticut, Joseloff and company typically
bought up a parcel of land in the town center and set up a supermarket
on the site. The vacant lot at 272 Main was ideal. A deed from April
14, 1931, mentions "a one-story building" on the lot - the
new supermarket.
From 1931 until 1957, First
National Stores operated from this site, although in its first decades,
it shared the building with at least two other businesses. Wannerstrom's
appliance store occupied the 30 feet at the end closest to the bridge,
and the Conklin Pharmacy occupied the northernmost 20 or 30 feet. The
grocery store had made the middle section. A tavern and a dry cleaners
also occupied various corners of the building at one time or another.
In 1957, First National moved to Marlborough Street, to what we identify
today as the Tri-Town Plaza. For a year or so, the building at 272 Main
stood vacant, until Don Demar, a 26 year old who was running a small
market in Hartford, contacted Joseloff's company. Demar had little
capital to sink into the store, but Joseloff seems to have liked his
style, and offered him generous terms. Don started up the Portland
Supermarket on July 17, 1957. He fondly remembers Joseloff's combination
of extraordinary business sense and rare generosity.
Until 1961, Fire Company #1's second firehouse, a small gambrel-roofed
house-like structure built in 1923, stood neatly between what was long
Brownstone Pharmacy and the supermarket. People had fewer cars, and more
people walked to the grocery store, so the front spaces were enough in
the 1940s and 50s! In 1961, the town took down the firehouse, and
parking behind the store was opened up. (A 1980s beautification effort
threatened to make those front spaces into three slots of parallel
parking; the will of the people prevailed, however, and kept this
supermarket as wonderfully convenient as it is!)
Don admits to putting up the unique tower/bird condo on the south side
of the front. "It was a 60s thing…" he says, somewhat
ruefully. Recently I watched Katie, a young neighbor, showing her
toddler the cute birdies up in their many nests in the tower. Almost
certainly, her own mother, Mary Ann, must have shown little Katie the
cute birdies up in their nests, some twenty or thirty bird-generations
ago! Of such stuff are traditions made!
In 1983, Don sold the supermarket to Warren Carlson, the current owner.
Carlson's son, Warren Jr. ("J.R."), came home from vacation
that year to discover that he was no longer running his dad's store in
Meriden. He'd been switched to the new one in Portland! Sixteen years
later, he's still at it, coordinating the millions of demands and needs
and mix-ups involved in feeding much of Portland. About the business,
standing like David amidst the Super-Goliaths, he says: "It gets
harder every year…"
Down cellar on the plywoond walls are hundreds of signatures. Kids who
worked in the store over the decades signed their names, and usually a
date. And somehow, that sums it up. This little supermarket is about
people, about a more human scale of life. Not some site-leveling
behemoth, controlled by out-of-state or even foreign interests. It's
about seeing your neighbor when you run down for a loaf of bread. Saying
"hi" to your son's friend as she works the register.
The birds in the condo hope we keep it that way.
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