Walter Brewster House (1787)

Located on Library Road off Canterbury Green is the small center-chimney home built by Walter Brewster around 1787. Brewster was a clock-maker and a silversmith and goldsmith. In 1792, Brewster joined with other Connecticut artisans (including much more well-to-do ones, like the manufacturer Christopher Leffingwell of Norwich) in a huge petition drive protesting the state’s taxation system and the ruling gentry. In 1797, Walter Brewster sold his house to his brother, Abel Brewster, also a goldsmith, silversmith and pewterer who, according to A Modern History of New London County (1922),

“had a goldsmith shop on the meeting house green in Canterbury, Connecticut, where his brother, Walter Brewster, also lived. In the “Courier,” published at Norwich, April 3, 1799, J. Huntington & Co. advertise among other things, “Table and Tea Spoons made to any pattern by Abel Brewster of Canterbury, may be had of Huntington & Co., also orders for any kind of Goldsmith and Jewellry Articles left with them will be executed by said Brewster with neatness and dispatch. Norwich Port, March 26. 1799”

In November, 1804, he seems to have set up his shop in Norwich Landing, and advertises that he is now selling for the most reasonable prices in cash or approved notes, a variety of warranted middling and low prized watches, chains, seals, keys, warranted silver table, tea, salt and mustard spoons; sugar tongs, silver thimbles, a variety of fashionable gold ear rings, knobs, lockets, bosom pins, and finger rings; warranted gold necklaces of superior quality; ladies’ and gentlemen’s morocco pocket books; pen knives, most kinds of watch materials and a variety of other articles in his line. “N.B. All kinds of Watches repaired with the utmost punctuality and dispatch. Cash and the highest price given for old gold and silver.” On February 27, 1805, he advertises, “A SUCCESSOR WANTED—ABEL BREWSTER. Finding the care necessary in his business too great for the present state of his health, offers to dispose of his whole stock in Business, consisting of Watches, Furnishing Materials, Jewelry, Silver and Fancy Work, Tools, &c, &c. He thinks the call highly worthy the attention of some Gentleman of the profession. Also for sale, the house, shop and garden formerly occupied by him and beautifully situated on Canterbury Green.” In “The Courier” of April 3, 1805, he announces that “Having disposed of his business to Messrs Judah Hart and Alvin Wilcox, he requests all persons indebted to him (whose debts have become due) to make immediate payment without further notice.” He died in 1807, and the inventory of his estate included a small house and lot “in Swallowall” (now Franklin Square) in Norwich.

The day of the old-time gold or silversmith had nearly passed; much of the work was now done by machinery, and while spoons still continued to be occasionally made, yet seldom has a good specimen been found in this section of later-day work.”

Lathrop Manor (1745)

The seventeenth century home of Dr. John Olmstead, Norwich’s first physician, was located at the current site of Lathrop Manor, on Washington Street in Norwichtown. He later sold his house, built around 1660, to Samuel Lathrop (1650-1732). It was then inherited by Samuel’s son, Thomas Lathrop (1681-1774). It is possible the original house burned in 1745 and was rebuilt. In any case, after Samuel’s death, it was owned by Dr. Daniel Lathrop, who joined with Dr. Joshua Lathrop (whose home is across the street) to establish Connecticut’s first apothecary, at that time the only one located between New York and Boston. Benedict Arnold lived in the house as a young man while he was apprenticed to the Lathrops, who were merchants in addition to running an apothecary. Dr. Daniel Lathrop married Jerusha, the daughter of Governor Joseph Talcott. The property was famed for its gardens and Lydia Huntly Sigourney, who later became a popular poet and author, lived in the house as a child while her father was working as a gardener for the Lathrops. Sigourney recorded her memories of the house and garden in her books, Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since (1824) and Letters of Life (1866). After Mrs. Jerusha Lathrop died in 1806, the house was owned by another Daniel Lathrop, the son of Dr. Joshua Lathrop. An important resident in the later nineteenth century was Daniel Coit Gilman, an influential educator who taught at Yale and became the first president of Johns Hopkins University. A Lathrop descendant, Gilman delivered A Historical Discourse at Norwich’s Bicentennial Celebration in 1859. Today the house is a bed & breakfast called Lathop Manor.

C.L. Griswold Factory (1870)

According to the History of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1884), the Town of Chester

“is finely situated for manufacturing, having two considerable streams of water running through it, which have their rise in the lower part of Haddam and unite, at tide-water, at the head of the cove. […] The first factory on the south stream is the bitt factory of C. L. Griswold, now occupied by the Chester Manufacturing Company, consisting of Edwin G. Smith, John H. Bailey, and Charles E. Wright, who manufacture auger bitts, corkscrews, reamers, etc. The factory is on the site of a forge built about the year 1816, and occupied by Abel Snow in the forging of ship anchors. About 1838, the building was used for the manufacture of carriage springs, later by C. L. Griswold & Co. for the manufacture of bitts, and by the present owners for the same business.”

The C.L. Griswold Factory building, built around 1870 (or perhaps as early as 1850) continued to be used for manufacturing until 1919. In the 1920s, the building became a Masonic Lodge and was more recently used by the National Theatre of the Deaf. In 2001 the building was purchased by the Chester Historical Society and has been renovated to become the Chester Museum at the Mill.

Seymour Congregational Church (1847)

The first Ecclesiastical Society in what is now Seymour was formed in 1789, when the area was still a part of Derby and known as Chusetown (and later as Humphreysville). The first meeting house was built in 1791 on on Pearl Street, where there is now a Methodist Church. The second meeting house was completed in 1825 where the Old Congregational Cemetery is today. It was known as the Village Church and then the Humphreysville Church. The third and current church was built in 1846-1847 and enlarged, with an addition on the south end, in 1890, when the church was also incorporated as the Seymour Congregational Church. The Albert Swan Memorial parish house was built adjacent to the church in 1907. The church buildings had to be extensively restored after the Flood of 1955.

The Elnathan Camp House (1758)

One of Durham’s most impressive eighteenth century buildings is the Elnathan Camp House, located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and Maiden Lane. Early in the eighteenth century, Abraham Jelit built a house on the property which was later owned by John Camp, who probaly built the current house around 1758 to replace the smaller Jelit House. Camp gave the house to his son, Phineas, in 1785 and Phineas Camp immediately sold the house to his brother, Elnathan. The house was used as a residence and shop by Elnathan Camp and later owners, with a tavern on the premises in the later nineteenth century. The house continues as a residence and offices today.

Marlborough Congregational Church Parsonage (1750)

The parsonage of the Congregational Church of Marlborough is a vernacular 1 3/4 story house, built around 1750 and later given a Greek Revival style frieze and cornice over the front door. The house was originally the parsonage of the Methodist Church, but when the church building was converted to become a library and town hall in the 1920s, the parsonage was sold to the Congregational Church.

The Griswold Inn (1776)

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The Griswold Inn is the most famous landmark building in Essex. A sign at the Inn states that the Griswold House was built by Sala Griswold in 1776. It originally stood near the shipyard and was moved to its current location on Main Street to become part of the house constructed by Richard Hayden in 1801. Hayden’s house was the first three-story building in the lower Connecticut River Valley. Around the same time, Richard’s two brothers, John G. and Amasa Hayden, built houses on either side (they are now part of the Griswold Inn complex, the Amasa Hayden House being the Inn’s annex). Hayden sold his house to Ethan Bushnell in 1806, moving to a new brick house nearby. Ethan Bushnell turned his home into a tavern. A former schoolhouse on the property, built in 1738, was attached to the house, possibly to serve as a kitchen (it is now the taproom). The Tavern was inherited by Bushnell’s children in 1849 and passed through a variety of owners over the years, probably acquiring the name Griswold House during the period it was owned by Emory Morse of Wallingford in the 1870s and 1880s. The Griswold Inn continues in business today. See Below for more images. (more…)