Around the time of his first marriage in 1732, Joseph Stevens (1711-1801) erected the house at 1212 Main Street in Glastonbury on land he had inherited from his father, Rev. Timothy Stevens. Around 1982, the original gambrel roof slope of the front façade was raised to two full stories, but the rear of the house still maintains a gambrel roof profile. The house remained in the Stevens family until 1804 and was later owned by Dr. John Wheat (1779-1831).
Organized in 1866 by hatmakers and merchants, the Union Savings Bank of Danbury has been located in the Louis Sullivan-inspired building at 226-228 Main Street since it was erected in 1887.
John Gallup, a carpenter-builder, may have erected the house he owned at 23 Gravel Street in Mystic. Built in 1837, the Greek revival-style house had alterations in the Italianate style in later years, but was restored to its original appearance in the 1970s. A house constructed by Gallup’s brother James, also a builder, is located nearby, at 32 Pearl Street.
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The building at 15 School Street in the Unionville section of Farmington was erected in 1917 as the town’s West End Library. Designed by Edward Tilton of New York, it was one of the many Carnegie libraries built throughout the country from the later nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries. Not used as a library since the 1960s, it has been home to the Unionville Museum since 1984.
Built between 1851 and 1858, the house at 4 Main Street in Bethel was built for C. H. Shepard (1818-1899), a hatter. It is one of a number of Greek Revival-style houses in town that were likely the work of the same architect/builder.
On the Fenton River, near the village of Gurleyville in the town of Mansfield is a historic stone gristmill. Built in the 1830s of local stone, including garnetiferous schist, gneiss, granite, pegmatite and quartzite, it replaced the original mill on the site, built in 1749 by Benjamin Davis, who had also constructed a dam. Samuel Cross, father of Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross, was the miller for many years in the nineteenth century. The mill was run by the Douda family from 1912 until it ceased operation in 1941. An attached sawmill, in operation since 1723, was destroyed by heavy snow in the early 1950s. The surviving gristmill has complete and perfectly preserved equipment from when it was last used. The Joshua’s Tract Conservation and Historic Trust (AKA Joshua’s Trust) purchased the property in 1979 and the Gurleyville Grist Mill is open to the public on a seasonal basis.
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The J. Elms Building is located at 60 Lyme Street in Old Lyme. According to the Old Lyme Historical Society Walking Tour brochure, the building dates to 1887. It was built by James Bugbee (possibly James Francis Bugbee?) as a house next to a storage building. In 1889 he converted it into his store, which he later deeded to his daughter and granddaughters, while he resided the rest of his life in a house abutting the store (which was known for many years as “Bugbee’s Store”). The store has had many owners over the years, including Elizabeth Griswold Whitley and her husband, Joseph.
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