Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Edward Manross House (1885)

The house at 34-36 Spring Street in Bristol was built in the mid-1880s by noted builder Joel Case. The mansard-roofed house was home to Edward Manross.

John C. Anderson Carriage House (1888)

John C. Anderson built his grand Second Empire house on Orange Street in New Haven in 1882. Six years later, a matching mansard-roofed carriage house was built on Lincoln Street, directly behind the main house. The building features ornately carved brownstone window trim.

Elisha Chapman Bishop House (1874)

The house at 122 Broad Street in Guilford was built in 1874 for Elisha Chapman Bishop (1824-1903). A native of Guilford, Bishop had become wealthy in the 1860s oil boom in Titusville, Pennsylvania. According to Vol. II of A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (1918), Bishop

was born April 10, 1824, in Guilford, remaining upon the home farm until he reached the age of twenty years. He then began learning the machinist’s trade, which he afterward followed in Guilford on his own account. In 1861 he began operations in the oil fields at Titusville, Pennsylvania, where he remained for ten years, meeting with substantial success. He returned to Guilford in 1870 and then took up the occupation of general farming. In 1874 he built one of the finest homes in Guilford and equipped it in a most modern manner. In politics he was originally a republican but afterward became a prohibitionist. He was an ardent supporter of the abolition party from the time that he reached his majority in 1845. In 1882 he represented his town in the state legislature and he held various local offices. His religious faith was that of the Congregational church. On the 5th of July, 1846, he married Charlotte G. Fowler and they became the parents of twelve children, six of whom are living: Robert Allen; Edward Fowler; Mary Cornelia, the wife of N. G. White, of Hartford, Connecticut; Eva B., the wife of Edward M. Leete, of Guilford; Ida, the wife of William J. Canfield, of New Haven; and Marilla Canfield, the wife of F. C. Spencer, of Guilford.

Bishop’s house in Guilford, built in the French Second Empire style on the northeast corner of Guilford Green, was designed by the noted architect Henry Austin of New Haven. The house was later inherited by Bishop’s granddaughter, Marilla, who was married to Frederick C. Spencer, president of the Spencer Foundry. After her death in 1962, the First Congregational Church purchased the house for use as a rectory.

Milton H. Rickerm House (1869)

The Victorian Italianate house with a Mansard roof at 43 Pearl Street in Mystic (Groton) was built in 1869 for Milton H. Rickerm, a patternmaker.

Haskell-Vinal House (1873)

The house at 264 Court Street in Middletown was built in 1873-1874 on land that had once been part of the Russell Estate. The house was built by John and Maria Haskell and remained in the Haskell family until 1921. John Haskell was a partner in Willard & Haskell, a company that dealt in lumber and manufactured sash, blinds and doors. From 1921 to 1933, the house was owned by Mary T. Vinal and then by Sebastian Pappalardo. Since 1958, the house has been owned by Wesleyan University and used as faculty housing.

Alfred G. Hull House (1849)

The Alfred G. Hull House, at 58-60 Boston Street in Guilford, was built in 1849 with an Italianate flat roof. A French Second Empire mansard roof was added to the house around 1860. According to an obituary in The American Stationer, Vol. XXXV, No. 6, February 8, 1894:

Alfred G. Hull, secretary and treasurer of the American Copying Paper Company, Windsor Locks, Conn., died at the residence of Henry E. Pratt, his son-in-law, at Springfield, Mass., January 31, and was buried at Guilford, Conn., on Saturday last. Mr. Hull had passed through a siege of grip, when he was attacked by pneumonia, which ended his life. Alfred G. Hull was born in Clinton Conn., and was seventy-one years of age, and had spent his life in the lumber business, retiring from active business about ten years ago. Later he became secretary and treasurer of the company of which his son-in-law is president. He was treasurer of the town of Guilford for a number of years, was also justice of the peace for a long term, and for the last twenty-eight years had been a member of the Third Congregational Church of Guilford. He was widely known, and was as widely esteemed and respected.

A lumber dealer and contractor, who built a number of buildings in Guilford, Alfred G. Hull was also vice-president of the Guilford Savings Bank.

George R. Finley House (1873)

Now owned by the neighboring Middlesex Hospital, the brick Second Empire-style house at 49 Crescent Street in Middletown was built in 1873 by George R. Finley. From Clinton, Finley moved to Middletown in 1847 and became a prosperous merchant, owning a grocery store, a cigar store and a restaurant. His widow Rachael lived in the house after his death in 1885.