Merry Christmas from Historic Buildings of Connecticut!
The house pictured above, with a silhouette nativity scene in front, is located at 100 Barbourtown Road in Canton. It was built in 1821 as a story and a half house by Uriah Hosford, who raised it to two full stories in 1850. Hosford was a deacon of the First Congregational Church in Canton Center. The house was later owned by Deacon Archibald Mills, a Civil War veteran and farmer, who had an apple orchard and grew broadleaf tobacco and hay. In 1891, Mills removed the house’s large stone chimney and fireplaces. In 1902, he added onto the house a photographic studio for his son, Lewis. The studio later became a kitchen after another son, Irwin, married Bertha Hosford. Irwin Mills grew Canton’s last tobacco crop c. 1946-1947.
Lewis Sprague Mills (1874-1965) was an educator with a lifelong interest in photography. Lame in the left leg after an injury at the age of three, Lewis wore a steel brace for the rest of his life, but still labored for his father as a full-time field hand. He later used photography to support himself through school at Columbia University, where he earned a bachelor‘s degree in education in 1908 and master‘s degree in school administration in 1912. Lewis S. Mills worked as a teacher and then as a school supervisor in Burlington and Harwinton, while also continuing to be an avid photographer of local scenes. He is particularly known for his collection of over 500 photographs of Connecticut school houses. After retiring he edited The Lure of the Litchfield Hills magazine and wrote The Story of Connecticut (1932). Lewis S. Mills High School, which serves Burlington and Harwinton, is named for him.
The original Congregational Church in New Hartford stood in the Town Hill Section. Built in 1739-1749, it was replaced by a new church in 1829. Residents in the north and south sections of town wanted churches located closer to where they lived and eventually formed their own Congregational societies. The North Congregational Church was built in 1828. A South Congregational Society was formed in 1846 in Nepaug, which was then the center of town. The church edifice, called the Nepaug Congregational Church, was built in 1848. As described in the History of Litchfield County (1881):
Much dissatisfaction with the location of the new Town Hill church was felt by the members resident at South End, who naturally wished to have it placed midway between the two settlements, waiving all attachment for the old site. This discontent gradually increased until, in 1848, the South Congregational Church of New Hartford was organized and the present church edifice built at Nepaug.
The church edifice is of wood, with a tower and bell. It has a basement containing a lecture-room, where town-meetings have been held on
alternate years. During the year 1880 about six hundred dollars were expended on the building, which is now in thorough repair.
Joseph O. Hurlburt, the father of this family, received his education in East Hartford, and for several years taught in the old North school, Hartford. During the last twenty years of his life he was principal of the Wethersfield high school, and he died March 18, 1899. He was a member of the County and State Teachers Association.
At 1 Chaplin Street in Chaplin is a small Greek Revival building erected in 1840 as the Town Hall. The current Chaplin Town Hall is located at 495 Phoenixville Road. The old Town Hall is now the Chaplin Museum.
Located at 112 Main Street in the Rockfall neighborhood of Middlefield is a house built c. 1820 by Joseph Hale. He had received the land from his uncle in 1819, after his marriage to Julia Stow (died 1843). As executor, Hale settled the estate of his father-in-law, Joshua Stow, and then sold the house to Freeman Johnson in 1849. Hale moved to Ohio, where he died in 1855. Johnson sold the house to his son, Ira N. Johnson, who manufactured pistols. As related in the History of Middlefield and Long Hill (1883), by Thomas Atkins,
[the] Pistol factory was erected by a company of young men, namely, Henry Aston, Ira N. Johnson, Sylvester Bailey, John North, Nelson Aston, and Peter Ashton. They took a large contract of the government of the United States for making pistols; an additional contract was granted them. When the work was finished the property was put up at auction by the company, and Ira N. Johnson was the highest bidder, and the property came to him in 1852. Since then, the manufacture of pistols and other things has been carried on by Johnson and others up to the time the factory was burned, which was on the night of the 21st of Sept., 1879.
The house at 55 Barry Road in Oxford was built in 1799 by James Dorman, who sold it the following year to George Cable. This sale included half-interest in a sawmill and gristmill, called Burrell Mills, located across the road along Eight Mile Brook. For a century, owners of the house would also own the mill, which is no longer in existence. The house has had many owners over the years, but was long known as the Bidwell Place, named for Henry E. Bidwell (1804-1883), who bought the house c. 1837. His family sold it in 1885. In the 1930s, the property, known as Petticoat Farm, was owned by H. Reinhardt Lewis, an artist who painted the local landscape. Built into a hillside, the house has an extra story in the rear.
