Happy Independence Day! To celebrate I’m sharing some photos I took last October at Fort Griswold in New London. First established in 1775, at the start of the American Revolution, the fort was the site of the Battle of Groton Heights, fought on September 6, 1781, during Benedict Arnold’s destructive raid on New London. In use as a fort at different times until after the Spanish-American War, today the site can be visited by the public at Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park. On this site I’ve previously featured two structures at the park: the monument, erected in 1830 to commemorate the 1781 battle, and a powder magazine built in 1843. Click below for more pictures and have a safe holiday!
In the early nineteenth century, David Strong ran a tavern on South Main Street in East Hampton. His son, John C. A. Strong, a tobacco farmer, acquired the property after his father’s death in 1825. Thirty years later he replaced the old tavern with an Italianate-style house that still stands at 2 South Main Street. John’s sons, Clark and David, both served in the Civil War and later formed the Strong Manufacturing Company in Winsted.
Horatio D. Chapman was born August 7, 1826, in the town of East Haddam. His early educational advantages were such as were afforded by the district and private schools of his native town, but he improved them to the utmost, and before reaching his majority had qualified himself as a teacher, and in that vocation met with marked success, his experience covering a period of twenty years in all. [. . . .]
The attempted disruption of the Union by the seceding Southern States fired his patriotic blood, and on August 6, 1862, he enlisted in Company C, Twentieth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, serving with marked gallantry as corporal, until June 13, 1865, when he was discharged. His regiment was engaged in many of the most important battles of that great struggle, but he passed through them all unscathed, although more than once the cutting of his uniform or his hat by a Confederate bullet warned him, how closely Death hovered over the battlefield. Chancellorsville and Gettysburg were among the memorable engagements in which he participated. Later he followed “Sherman to the sea,” and tramped through the Carolinas and across Virginia’s “sacred soil” to Richmond. During these memorable campaigns, even while on the march, he found time to keep a diary, which—today—is of surpassing interest, and excerpts from which he is constantly asked to read when the “old boys” gather on Memorial Day to revive memories of the past and to lay chaplets upon the graves of the heroes of the Republic.
In 1866 Mr. Chapman came back to his native State, settling at East Hampton. For a year thereafter he was foreman in the Skinner saw-mill, and during the next year was in the employ of D. W. Watrous. For three terms he taught a village school in Chatham. Wearying of the teacher’s dais, he accepted an offer to become a traveling salesman for the bell and coffin trimmings industries of East Hampton. In this line of work he was successfully engaged for twenty-five years. In the Spring of 1899 he traveled for N. N. Hill, and he is still erect, hale and hearty, with undimmed mental factulties, at the age of seventysix years. He is a man held in high esteein by the community which best knows and appreciates his worth, and has filled various local offices with marked distinction and fidelity, among them being those of selectman (two years), member of the board of relief, and of the board of education for between twelve and fifteen years. In 1897 he served as doorkeeper for the General Assembly[.]
In the early nineteenth century, town meetings in Pomfret were held in churches and other borrowed buildings. In the 1830s there was a movement to build a permanent town hall, but the citizens disputed where to locate the building. Eventually a council was formed to select the location. To ensure neutrality, the council of three was composed of individuals who were not members of the Pomfret community, being chosen from the neighboring towns of Hampton, Thompson, and Killingly. The spot chosen was roughly midway between the town’s two larger villages of Abington and Pomfret Center. Erected in 1841 (at what is now 17 Town House Road), the new building would serve as Town House for many years and is now owned by the Pomfret Historical Society.
Abner S Hart was a member of the general assembly in 1887, representing the town of Farmington in the house. Mr. Hart cast his first vote for Henry Clay for president in 1844 and has since been a member of the whig and republican parties. He was born in Barkhamsted, July 15, 1823, and received a thorough education, preparing him for the avocation of teaching in the public schools. He pursued that calling for fourteen years, teaching winters and farming through the summer. In 1866 he established himself in the drug business at Riverton and became postmaster there in 1869. The latter position was retained for twelve years. He has held various local offices, including that of acting school visitor for fourteen years and chairman of the board of relief. Since 1881 he has resided at Unionville, where he is engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mr. Hart is a member of Evening Star Lodge, No. 101, F. and A. M., of Unionville. He is descended from revolutionary stock, both of his grandfathers having served in the war for independence. He has in his possession a sword that was carried in the service by one of them. Mr. Hart is a prominent citizen of Unionville, and is held in thorough esteem in that community as well as in his old home in Barkhamsted.
Abner S. Hart had three sons with his first wife, Julia. The older two continued in business in Riverton, while the youngest, Henry, joined his father in Unionville, where Abner lived with his second wife, Margaret. Abner retired from his store, called A. S. Hart and Son, in 1896, and the business was continued by Henry under the name H. W. Hart and Company. The house remained in the Hart family until 1937. In recent years, it has had significant alterations, with a redesigned entryway and windows, a new porch, and the addition of a rooftop cupola, which is in keeping with the building’s Italianate style.
Possible dates for the construction of the house at 17 Church Street in Hebron include 1797, 1805, 1811 and 1815. The house is listed on the website of the Hebron Historic Properties Commission with the latter date and John Graves as the builder. The website also indicates that the owner of the house dated it to 1805 and attributed the building to Amos Strong, who owned a brick kiln. Strong sold the house in 1818 and it passed through many different owners during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
According to Portrait of a River Town: The History and Architecture of Haddam, Connecticut (2nd edition, 2001), by Janice P. Cunningham and Elizabeth A. Warner (p.194), the family of Benanuel Bonfoey (1755-1825) is thought to have come to Haddam after the expulsion of the Acadians from the Maritime Provinces of Canada by the British in 1755. Alternatively, one genealogical website indicates that Bonefoy’s father, Benanuel Bonfoey I, was born in Massachusetts in 1731 (or 1720) and served in the French and Indian War. His son, Benanuel Bonfoey II, was born in Haddam in 1755 and married Concurrence Smith (1759-1849) in 1779. Bonfoey was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, serving during the battles in New York state. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903):
Benanuel Bonfoey often referred to the of the soldiers at Valley Forge so remarkable in the annals of that great war. He referred with pride to the fact of Gen. Washington’s concern for and care of his men and that he was like a father to the soldiers, cheering or inspiring them with hope as best could
After the war, Bonfoey built the house at 15 Jacoby Road in Haddam. Further west on the road are houses built by his wife’s relatives, members of the Smith family. After his death in 1825, the house was inherited by his son, Benanuel Bonfoey (1802-1894). The Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County describes the construction of the house:
He built the house on Candlewood Hill in which his son, Benanuel, spent his long and useful life, dying at the age of ninety-two; this house is still standing and in use, serving to illustrate the stability with which the old time houses were constructed. When this Bonfoey homestead was built, the solid chimney was first erected, and then after the chimney was completed the house was built around it. The chimney was erected in 1804 and the house in 1808.
At 7 Walnut Street in Ivoryton is a large Victorian house situated on a hill adjacent to the Falls River. It was erected in 1890 for Sarah E. Conklin. In 1898 it was purchased by Fred J. A. Miller, an overseer at Comstock, Cheney & Co. He also served as a deputy sheriff. His son, Fred W. A. Miller, attended Brown University. After graduation, he served in the Army in World War One and died of pneumonia in France in 1918. The house was inherited in 1919 by the elder Miller’s widow, Edith, and daughter, Pearl Shupp and remained in the Miller family until 1961. To read more about the house, see Houses of Essex Volume II, by Donald Malcarne (p. 159).
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