The Paw Paw River Journal
Published January 21, 1976
From Olds House to Hartford House; now it’s an apartment house
During my lifetime, the biggest and best-known hotel in Hartford has always been called The Hartford House. Now it is the only one still standing of what was once a grand total of at least six places offering shelter to the weary traveler and a home away from home.
In the beginning it was named The Olds House, because (naturally) it was built by a man named Edwin R. Olds. His father was a brother to Ferdino Olds, known as Hartford’s first white settler. In fact, Edwin is said to have married one of Ferdino’s daughters named Harriet. The fact that the couple were first cousins was not so unusual on the frontier, and in the middle of the 19th century Hartford was on the frontier.
The couple first settled south of town just off the Keeler Road and north of the old Jay Johnson place, now owned by Bob and Delores Kling. There Edwin built a log cabin for his bride in which they lived for some time, then built a frame house across the road.
