The date the Joseph Rainey House, on Palisado Avenue in Windsor, was built is unknown, but the Greek Revival style was popular in the 1820s and 1830s. It is also possible that the Greek Revival section was added to an earlier building owned by Jonathan Ellsworth. Joseph Rainey was the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing South Carolina from 1870 to 1879. He bought the house as a summer home in 1874. The house is on the Connecticut Freedom trail.
The Joseph Rainey House (1830)
My parents owned this house when I was growing up. Looking back at those years, I realize that I spent some of the very best years of my entire existence as a human being under the roof of the Joseph Rainey house.
It’s kind of ironic that we sold this place and downsized when I was about 12 years of age, and now at age 21 (not quite twice that age yet but the number of that age inverted) I’m starting to get very nostalgic about my upbringing and realizing how many great memories for me were made living in this house. Memories having little or nothing to do with this house itself and having everything to do with the simplicity of being a child and doing things like waking up on Saturday morning to watch cartoons without a care in the world still bring to mind this house for me.
Nonetheless, it is my opinion that this house is certainly far bigger than myself, and definitely far bigger than any one person to ever occupy it (past, present, or future) with the exception of Joseph Rainey. Even then, it’s not entirely about Rainey himself as it is about the valuable contributions he selflessly made to the evolution of mankind.