Union Station from the cast-iron gate to Rose Hill, Waterbury

I know relatively little of the history of this cast iron gate except that it stands at the street before the front entrance to 63 Prospect Street, Waterbury. If it is contemporary with the house behind it, it was put here in 1852 by William H. Scovill, powerful citizen, sometime mayor of Waterbury and brass industry president, on a site with what was then the most commanding prospect of the town’s green spread below along the bottom of the hill. 

The home, known as "Rose Hill," would later be famously occupied by Scovill's descendants, so called, “barons of brass." Occupants would include eccentric Caroline Welton, only child of brass aristocrats, Joseph C. Welton and Jane E. Porter. Carrie's antics on horseback were topics for gossip. When she died she left money for to immortalize her black stallion, Knight, with a bronze statue at the head of the town green. Knight had, it was said, kicked her father to death.