53 Main Street, Stonington Borough (1787)
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 Posted in Colonial, Houses, Stonington | No Comments »
Built in 1787, the house at 53 Main Street in Stonington Borough was shared by two brothers, Joseph and Benjamin Eells, whose wives drew a line down the kitchen floor, dividing it in two. The house was later home to the writers Grace Zaring Stone (d. 1991) and her daughter, Eleanor Perenyi (d. 2009). Stone, who was the great-great-granddaughter of Robert Owen, the British social reformer and socialist, wrote novels, including The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932), Escape (1939) and Winter Meeting (1946) (all three of which were made into films). She began using the pseudonym Ethel Vance for her anti-Nazi novel Escape, because her daughter, who had married the Hungarian Baron Zsigmond Perenyi, was at the time living at her husband’s castle in Ruthenia, then controlled by German-occupied Czechoslovakia (now in Ukraine). Eleanor Perenyi later created an extensive private garden at the house in Stonington and wrote a classic book on gardening, called Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden (1981).
The Joel White House (1740)
Monday, July 26th, 2010 Posted in Bolton, Colonial, Houses | No Comments »
Built sometime between 1740 and 1780, the Joel White House is located on Bolton Center Road in Bolton. It was the site of Bolton’s first post office in 1812. Samuel Alvord was the first Postmaster.
The Truman Gillet House (1805)
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 Posted in Colonial, Granby, Houses | No Comments »
Truman Gillet, a Granby farmer and cooper, built a small slatbox house on North Granby Road in 1805. Gillet had acquired the land from his uncle, Azariah Gillet, who farmed in the area in partnership with Truman’s father, Nathan Gillet. Truman Gillet occupied the house until his death in 1873, at the age of 90. His house is now the Truman Gillet House B & B.
The David Welch House (1756)
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 Posted in Colonial, Houses, Litchfield | No Comments »
Milton, a village in Litchfield, was settled in the mid-eighteenth century. David Welch arrived in Milton from New Milford in 1753 and established a puddling furnace for refining the pig iron brought from Salisbury. The furnace was on Shear Shop Road, located behind the saltbox house, at Potash and Milton Roads, which Welch built in 1756. Welch, who also bought and sold the iron ore mined in northwestern Connecticut, later constructed an addition, for use as a store, on the eastern end of his house. Welch did business with Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary War hero, and later served as a major in the War himself. Welch moved into another house in Milton in 1784, where he died in 1815. His original house was later owned by William Bissell, from 1860 to 1902. Bissell was a farmer, house painter and captain in the Civil War. The house was also used for many years as a parish house by the neighboring Trinity Episcopal Church. There is a pdf document available with additional pictures of the house’s exterior and interior.
The Eustis Brush House (1760)
Thursday, July 15th, 2010 Posted in Colonial, Houses, Newtown | No Comments »
Eustis Brush was an indentured servant who had acquired his freedom and settled in Newtown, building a house on Main Street around 1760.
The Daniel Basset House (1775)
Friday, July 9th, 2010 Posted in Colonial, Houses, Monroe | No Comments »
The Daniel Basset House, north of the Green in Monroe, was built in 1775. The house has large second-floor ballroom where, according to local tradition, a ball was held on June 30, 1781, to welcome the Hussars of the French mounted Legion led by the Duc De Lauzon (pdf). Lauzun’s Legion, which was protecting the southern flank of the main French army under the Comte de Rochambeau, was camped just south of the village center of New Stratford (now Monroe). The French would soon march to fight in the Siege of Yorktown. The Basset House, located near Masuk High School, maintains much of its historic appearance, with early nineteenth-century decoration around the entrance.
The William Loomis House (1795)
Thursday, July 8th, 2010 Posted in Colonial, Houses, Windsor | No Comments »
The William Loomis House (also known as the Deacon Warner House) in Windsor was built on the corner Broad and Elm Streets, facing Broad Street Green, in the 1790s, or perhaps as late as 1805. Horace Clark moved the house to 31 Elm Street around 1897, detaching the house’s kitchen ell, which was the earlier Deacon John Moore House, now next door to the Loomis House at 37 Elm Street. Clark sold the house to Dr. Clyde A. Clark in 1906.
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