Derby's 1902 memorial library and the boy whose name it bears
313 Elizabeth Street, Derby, CT 06418
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public library; donations welcome.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Granite ashlar building on a slope; main entrance has stairs but accessible entry is available
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1902 · National Register of Historic Places (1982) · Colonial Revival architecture · Memorial library tradition
The Harcourt Wood Memorial Library, more commonly known to residents simply as the Derby Public Library, was officially dedicated on December 27, 1902 by Colonel H. Holton Wood and Alice Wood of Derby, Connecticut, in memory of their son Harcourt. Harcourt Wood died in February 1897 at the age of eleven following an illness identified in family and local records as meningitis. After his death, his parents offered to donate the land, building, and a five-thousand-dollar book endowment to the City of Derby on the condition that the city match funds and commit to ongoing upkeep. The arrangement allowed Derby to become the last city in Connecticut without a free circulating library to finally have one.
Colonel Wood was a native of Montreal who made his fortune operating the streetcar railway system in the Naugatuck Valley. The building was designed by Boston architect Hartley Dennett in the Colonial Revival style, with granite ashlar walls, Flemish gables, and a Beaux Arts interior intended to provide "lasting interior as well as external beauty," in the words of contemporary press coverage. A memorial plaque to Harcourt Wood remains at the front entrance, and library staff continue a tradition of placing fresh flowers throughout the reading rooms on Harcourt's birthday each year.
The library was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It remains the principal public library serving the City of Derby today, and is one of the most architecturally distinctive small-city libraries in Connecticut. The Derby Historical Society and the library jointly maintain records of the Wood family donation and the building's construction.
Sources
The most frequently reported account associated with the library involves a young boy seen standing in the foyer after closing hours. According to a long-circulated local account, a mother and her son approached the library one snowy evening to drop materials in the book return slot. The son climbed the steep granite steps and looked through a window into the darkened building. By the family's telling, the boy ran back down the steps in a panic, having seen the figure of a small boy standing inside the foyer.
Library employees have repeated comparable accounts over the years: lights switching on and off in unoccupied rooms, doors closing without an obvious cause, and the soft sound of footsteps in the upper-floor stacks after hours. None of these accounts has been independently documented in newspapers of record, but they are part of the oral tradition surrounding the Wood family's gift and the memorial role the building plays in Derby. The lore is generally treated by staff and patrons as a benign extension of the building's commemorative purpose, not as a frightening haunting.
Notable Entities
Walk through one of New England's most architecturally distinctive small-city libraries. Read the memorial plaque to Harcourt Wood at the front entrance, and note the Colonial Revival interior with its granite ashlar walls and Flemish gables. Library staff are accustomed to visitors interested in the building's history.
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