The Federal style-house at 62 Main Street in North Stonington was built c. 1802 by Colonel Nathan Wheeler (1772-1829). It was next owned by Nathan’s son, Giles Wheeler (1801-1866), who most likely was the builder of the store that is adjacent to the house. The house is named for later owner Levi Robinson, who owned a trip hammer works where iron was forged.
The house at 34-36 Main Street in North Stonington was built in 1795. Around 1860 it was the home of Wheeler Hakes, a shoemaker, and in the 1940s it was occupied by postmaster C. Ernest Gray.
The parsonage (minister’s residence) for the North Stonington Congregational Church, located at 91 Main Street, was built c. 1851-1853. Ministers regularly resided in the Parsonage until 1983, when the church, for the first time, permitted the then minister to purchase his own home (see “Parsonage; A Home of His Own Doesn’t Mean Abandoning His Flock,” The Day, October 17, 1983). (more…)
The William M. Wheeler House is a Greek Revival structure at 77 Main Street in North Stonington. It was built around 1838. The Wheelers were prominent merchants and industrialists in North Stonington.
Reverend Joseph Ayer (1793-1875) was pastor of the Congregational Church in North Stonington from 1825 to 1837. Sometime during that period his house, located at 94 Main Street, was built. He then moved to Sprague where he became minister of the Hanover Congregational Church. North Stonington village was once known as Milltown and as related in his obituary in The Congregational Quarterly, Vol. XIX, No. 2 (April, 1877):
At the time he commenced his residence in Milltown, a village within the bounds of his parish, there were in that small village ten places in which intoxicating liquors were sold in larger or smaller quantities, — eight stores, and two taverns. Within a short time he was permitted to see them all closed, or cleansed of the fumes of alcohol, — an achievement hardly to be paralleled in the annals of the temperance reform.
The house at 92 Main Street in North Stonington was built in 1818. It is known as the Oliver Avery House. This may be the Oliver Avery who was born in Groton in 1757 and died in North Stonington in 1842.
The Ecclesiastical Society for the North section of Stonington first met in 1721. The Society soon built a meeting house at “Meeting House Corner,” at the intersection of Wyassup and Reutemann Roads. The building, which became known as “the old black meeting house” because of the weathered condition of its unpainted wood, was taken down in 1817 and its wood was used to build a new meeting house at what is now 89 Main Street in North Stonington. Earlier, in 1746, the congregation had been divided. Influenced by the preaching of James Davenport of Long Island, a “New Light” preacher, many left the church to join a new Separate Church, called the Strict Congregational Church. They built their own meeting house over a mile west of North Stonington (Milltown) village. By 1817 the two churches had grown closer and both needed a new meeting house. They shared the newly erected building, officially reuniting as one church in 1827. The current meeting house was built in 1848 on the site of the 1817 edifice. In 1886, funds donated by Dudley R. Wheeler provided the church with stained glass windows and cherry wood pews, pulpit and wainscoting. The church was rededicated in April, 1887.