The Oliver Mather House (1777)

Colonel Oliver Mather was born in 1749 and married Jemima Elsworth, the sister of Oliver Ellsworth, in 1778. Their eldest son, also named Oliver, graduated from Yale in 1799. The Mather House, on Broad Street in Windsor, was built the year before the colonel’s marriage. Mather died in 1829 and around 1840 the house was remodeled, adding a heavy balustrade along the roof and above a square hip-roofed entry porch. In 1901, the building became the home of the Windsor Public Library (founded in 1895). Early on, the librarian lived in the house and the library was in a one-story addition to the house. Further additions have since been made and the front facade has been restored to a colonial appearance.

Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer House (1852)

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As a young sea captain in 1820, while searching for new seal rookeries south of Cape Horn, Nathaniel Brown Palmer became the first American to discover Antarctica. Palmer Land, on the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Palmer Archipelago are named in his honor. Later, Palmer helped develop the clipper ship and became a successful ship owner. A biography of “Captain Nat”, titled Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer, An Old-Time Sailor of the Sea, by John R. Spears, was published in 1922. An icebreaking research ship, named the Nathaniel B. Palmer, was launched in 1992. Palmer’s 1852 Italian Villa style mansion, located on Palmer Street in Stonington, overlooks the upper section of Stonington Harbor and is one of four stately homes built in the area of Lambert’s Cove in the 1850s. The house was acquired by the Stonington Historical Society in 1994 and is now open to visitors as a house museum.

847 North Main Street, West Hartford (1777)

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The 1777 house at 847 North Main Street in West Hartford is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also on a touring guide of the Historic Sites of West Hartford. No known family name appears to be associated with this home.
Also, seven new buildings have been posted on Historic Buildings of Massachusetts! These are Trinity Church and New Old South Church in Boston; the Sheldon-Hawks House and Wells-Thorn House in Deerfield; the Phillips School in Boston; Harvard Hall in Cambridge; and Connecticut’s own state building at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield!

Graves-Gilman House (1866)

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The Graves-Gilman House, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, is an Italianate Villa built in 1866. Originally intended for John S. Graves, it was sold before it was completed to Tredwell Ketcham of New York, who gave it to his daughter, Mary Van Winker Ketcham. She was the wife of Daniel Coit Gilman, a Yale professor and librarian, who became the second president of the University of California in 1872 and in 1875 helped establish the Johns Hopkins University as its first president. Gilman also wrote a number of books, including biographies of James Monroe and James Dwight Dana, whose house was also on Hillhouse Avenue. Yale acquired the house in 1921 and it was converted in 1957 to house the Department of Economics.