Various dates can be found for the construction of the house at 227 Ellsworth Street in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport. The City of Bridgeport assessor’s field card gives a date of 1837. The book, History of Black Rock, 1644-1955 (1955), compiled by Dr. Ivan O. Justinius, indicates it was built around 1845. The nomination for the Black Rock Historic District provides a date of 1854, the same year as the Capt. Charles Allen House at 213 Ellsworth Street. The two houses were originally identical, but around 1910 the house at No. 227 was altered by the addition of the gable roof and the octagonal projection between the main block and the side wing on the left.
Whatever the precise date of construction, the house at 227 Ellsworth Street was built by Isaac W. Jones (1806-1863). The house was later owned by Joseph Smith, who married Capt. Allen’s daughter, Sarah Allen. The house passed to their daughter, Viola, wife of James E. Hurlburt, and then to her daughter, Viola Hurlburt Carpenter. She and her husband, Hubert Benton Carpenter, later moved to Fairfield between 1957 and 1964.