Elijah Barber House (1800)

The house at 59 Barbourtown Road in Canton was built in 1800 by Elijah Barber (1748-1820). Elijah’s son, Daniel, raised the house higher and Daniel Hiram, a later owner, added an ell. In the 1830s, when there was a boom in raising silk worms, a silk worm house, or “cocoonery,” was erected on the property. In 1844 a disease struck the mulberry trees in Connecticut that fed the worms and the industry failed. The silk worm house was replaced by a barn, which later became a residence. Roy C. Webster, who had been a “Yankee Peddler” in his youth, bought the Barber House in 1926 and restored it.