Masonic Temple, Wethersfeld (1922)

When forming a Lodge in 1921, Masons in Wethersfield chose the name Hospitality Lodge in honor of a nickname of the Webb House, located at 211 Main Street. Built in 1752 for Joseph Webb, Sr., the house became known as “Hospitality Hall” in the years before the Revolutionary War for the lavish parties hosted by Joseph Webb, Jr. and his wife Abigail. The house hosted a famous Mason, George Washington, when he met the French General Rochambeau in Wethersfield in 1781. Hospitality Lodge No. 128 AF&AM was chartered March 5, 1921. The Masonic Temple at 245 Main Street was built the following year and remained in use until 1997, when the Lodge merged with Stepney Lodge No. 133 from Rocky Hill to form Silas Deane Lodge No. 147, which later moved from Wethersfield. More recently, Masons in town wanted to form a new Lodge and were granted the old Hospitality No. 128 charter. The Lodge now meets at the Solomon Welles House in Wethersfield. The old Masonic building has remained vacant, although the town planning and zoning commission approved its conversion into a two-family home in 2014.

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Maj. Samuel Wolcott House (1750)

The house at 381 Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield is believed to have been built by Maj. Samuel Wolcott about 1750. The Wolcott Coat of Arms are painted on a panel over the mantel in the house’s north parlor. A later resident was Elisha Wolcott (1755-1827), a hat maker. He married Mary Welles in 1775 and soon after served in the Revolutionary War in Capt. Hanmer’s company As related in Vol. I of Henry R. Stiles’ History of Ancient Wethersfield (1904):

Elisha Wolcott, gt-gd-son of Samuel Wolcott 2nd, after some service in the army at New York in the summer and autumn of 1776, is said, at Gen. Washington’s suggestion, to have returned to his home in Wethersfield for the purpose of making hats for the soldiers — and one of the “hat blocks” used by him in this manufacture, at the old Samuel Wolcott (present Bourne) house, is still in possession of his descendants.—Letter of Mrs. J. W. Griswold.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Wethersfield (1958)

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wethersfield was organized on March 21, 1943 and the congregation initially used a vacant store at 689 Wolcott Hill Road for worship. Outgrowing the store after a few months, the congregation acquired the Griswold House at 371 Wolcott Hill Road. The congregation worshiped in a chapel on the first floor its first pastors also lived in the house. After using the house for fifteen years, a new church building was erected on the property and the congregation began worshiping in its new home on New Years Day, 1958. A parish Education Building was constructed in 1968 and a new Fellowship Hall, connecting the Church and the Education Building, was completed in 1996.

Josiah Wolcott House (1754)

Suggested dates for the construction of the house at 329 Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield have included 1734, 1754, 1764 and 1775. It is said that the nails used in building the house were made by prisoners at Old Newgate Prison. The house, which is named after Josiah Wolcott, has overhangs with dentil molding above both floors. Horace Wells, who pioneered the use of anesthesia (using nitrous oxide) in dentistry, lived in the house for a time in the 1840s [or is this a confusion with another Horace Wells (1789-1853), son of Thomas Wells?]. The Hart Seed Company began in this house in 1892 when Charles C. Hart started packaging seeds in the kitchen. In 1957 the house was purchased by Glenn Weaver, a professor of history at Trinity College who wrote a history of Hartford. His wife Emojean was a teacher at Wethersfield High School.

Benjamin Adams House (1760)

A sign on the house at 355 Middletown Avenue in Wethersfield notes that it was “Built About 1760 by Benjamin Adams” (it may also date to 1766 or 1794). Benjamin Adams (1735-1816) was a carpenter who built several houses in the south end of town and assisted in building the Rev. James Lockwood House. Later, he operated the Chester Mill. The house remained for several generations in the Adams family, being the birthplace of Benjamin’s great-grandson, Judge Sherman Wolcott Adams (1836-1898). During the Civil War, Adams served as acting assistant paymaster of the U.S. Navy. After the War, he served in the state legislature, was for six years was associate judge of the Hartford police court, and served as president of Hartford’s park commissioners, during which time he worked actively for the erection of the Soldier and Sailors Memorial Arch. The sign, mentioned above, notes the house was his birthplace and describes him as “Author of Wethersfield Histories.” Adams wrote several chapters in the Memorial History of Hartford County (2 vols., 1886). He also wrote about the Maritime History of Wethersfield. His extensive historical collections were used as the major source for Henry R. Stiles’ History of Ancient Wethersfield.

Deacon Simeon Francis House (1800)

At the corner of Nott Street and Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield is a house (248 Nott Street) built in 1800 by Deacon Simeon Francis (1770-1823). Five Children of Simeon Francis would eventually move west, making an epic journey. As described in Indiana and Indianans, Vol. III (1919) by Jacob Piatt Dunn:

Five of the Francis brothers and their two sisters, children of Simeon and Mary Ann, decided after the death of their parents to leave their old home in Wethersfield and seek a new home in the west. Charles and Simeon left home sometime previously. The others embarked on the sloop Falcon at Hartford September 17, 1829, their journey being down the Connecticut River and through Long Island Sound to New York, thence up the Hudson River to Albany and across the state by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, where they were joined by their brother Simeon. A sailing vessel took them over Lake Erie to Sandusky, and thence they procured wagons to cross the State of Ohio to Cincinnati. After a journey fraught with much exposure and lack of proper nourishment they reached Cincinnati, and were thence borne by a small steamboat down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to St. Louis, barely escaping with their lives through the wrecking of one of the boats. They were seventy-seven days in making the journey which can now be made with comfort in less than one-third as many hours.

In 1831 Simeon, Josiah and John went to Springfield, Illinois, taking with them a little old printing press which they brought from Connecticut. On November 10, 1831, the first issue of the Sangamon Journal, now the Illinois State Journal, was brought out by these brothers. Simeon and Allen Francis fostered the youthful ambitions of Abraham Lincoln by loaning him a copy of Blackstone and all the other books possible. They also introduced Mr. Lincoln to the leading social and professional figures of Springfield. It was at the home of Allen Francis that Mr. Lincoln met Miss Todd, whom he subsequently married. Mr. Lincoln reciprocated in 1861 by appointing Simeon Francis paymaster of all the troops in the Northwest, with the rank of colonel, and stationed at Vancouver, Washington. In 1870 he was retired on half pay and returned to Portland, where he established the Portland Oregonian, still a power in the newspaper field.

Mentioned in the above is Allen Francis (1815-1887), who was born in the Wethersfield house. As described in Francis; Descendants of Robert Francis of Wethersfield, Conn. (1906), compiled by Charles E. Francis:

He went to St. Louis when a young man and resided there until 1834. He then moved to Springfield, Ill., and in 1846 he became connected with his brothers. Charles and Simeon, in publishing the Sangamon County Journal, at which time they erected the new Journal buildings. He was for many years a member of the city council of Springfield. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him the first consul to Victoria, Vancouver’s Island. He resigned in 1884. With his sons he was afterwards engaged in the fur trade with the Indians on the Pacific coast. [. . .]

It was through Hon. Allen Francis that Secretary Seward gained the information concerning the varied resources of Alaska which determined him to enter into negotiations with Russia for its purchase. He was a firm and intimate friend of President Lincoln, and it was at his home in Springfield that
Mr. Lincoln met Miss Todd, whom he subsequently married.

Thomas Harris House (1755)

The house at 117 Maple Street in Wethersfield was built c. 1755. It was the homestead of Thomas Harris (1695-1774) and remained in the Harris family for many years. The area around the Harris Homestead, where members of the family built other houses, was known as Harris Hill. Harris had a son, Thomas Harris, Jr., who died in 1774 from injuries sustained at a barn raising. His son, Thomas Harris III (1771-1829) had a son, Chauncey Harris (1816-1875), who was principal of Hartford’s South School, which was later renamed for him. Chauncey Harris also served as the city’s Superintendent of Schools.