First Church in Windsor (1794)

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The history of Windsor’s Congregational Church goes back to 1630, when its founding members arrived in Massachusetts with John Winthrop‘s fleet. In 1635, they left Dorchester, Mass and settled in Windsor. The town and congregation soon grew under the leadership of their minister, John Warham, and their teacher of church doctrine, Ephraim Huit. The church’s first building was located in the center of Palisado Green. The current First Church in Windsor, on Palisado Avenue, was built in 1794, but was significantly altered in 1844 with the replacement of the original steeple and the addition of a columned portico, both in the Greek Revival style.

The Philip Cheney house (1900)

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The Philip Cheney House, which is currently being restored, is one of the mansions of the Cheney Family of Silk Manufacturers which face Hartford Road across the Great Lawn in Manchester. It was designed by Charles Adams Platt, himself a member of the Cheney Family, who also designed the Frank Cheney, Jr. and Clifford D. Cheney Houses. The house, an H-shaped Colonial Revival building, was finished around 1900 and lies northwest of the adjacent Clifford D. Cheney House. Philip Cheney was a brother of Clifford and Russell Cheney.

The Charles Cheney House (1851)

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The Charles Cheney House is one of the Cheney Mansions in Manchester that was constructed across the Great Lawn from Hartford Road. It is southwest of the adjacent Austin Cheney House. The Charles Cheney House was built in the Tudor style. Tax records indicate it was built in 1851, but may have a later date, when the Tudor Revival style was popular. Charles Cheney was one of the Cheney Brothers of silk manufacturers.

Phelps Tavern (1776)

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Located on Hopmeadow Street in Simsbury, the Capt. Elisha Phelps House served as a tavern run by successive generations of the Phelps family. According to Wikipedia, it was built by Capt. Phelps in 1776, although the Simsbury Historical Society site indicates it was built sometime earlier, purchased by Phelps and raised by him, adding a new first floor, around 1771. Phelps and his brother, Noah Phelps, were involved in gathering intelligence during the Revolutionary War campaign to capture Fort Ticonderoga. In 1962, the house was purchased by the Simsbury Historical Society from the last of the Phelps family members to live there. It can now be visited as the Phelps Tavern Museum, part of a campus of historical buildings moved to the site by the Historical Society.

The Mary Cheney House (1870)

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A Second Empire-style house with a mansard roof, originally built in Manchester in 1870 by Frank Cheney, one of the original brothers of the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturers, was passed in to his daughter, Mary Cheney. She engaged in various philanthropic activities and Manchester’s Public Library is named for her. Located on Hartford Road, the house is now used by the South United Methodist Church as New Hope Manor, a residential school and treatment center for adolescent girls with mental health and substance abuse issues.

William S. Ingraham House (1890)

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The house of William S. Ingraham, who for 40 years was the general manager of the E. Ingraham Company, a Bristol clock and watch manufacturer, is on Summer Street in Bristol. Built in 1890, the house was designed by the New York architects Babb, Cook & Willard in the Shingle Style, a variant of the Queen Anne style with shingles featured prominently. The house was heated by pipes connected to the Ingraham factory, Bristol’s first example of heating a house from outside, a practice to be followed by other factory owners in the city. It was also one of the first houses in Bristol to be electrified.