Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Author: Daniel

Harriet Beecher Stowe House (1871)

Built on Forest Street in Hartford’s Nook Farm neighborhood in 1871 for a lawyer named Franklin Chamberlin, this house was bought two years later by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She lived here with her husband, Calvin Stowe (a retired minister and professor) and two unmarried twin daughters, Hatty and Eliza. In 1878 she completed her last novel Poganuc People, based on her early years growing up in Litchfield. After Stowe died in 1896, the twins sold the house and it was later bought, in 1927, by Katharine Seymour Day (Stowe’s great-niece and the granddaughter of Isabella Beecher Hooker), who left it to become a museum. The house was restored in the 1960s and is open to the public as part of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.

Michael Griswold House (1730)

Preserved by the Griswold Family Association on Garden Street in Wethersfield, this classic saltbox house was built in 1730. The earlier rear section dates back to 1680.

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Roseland Cottage (1846)

Built in 1846 in Woodstock as a summer home for Henry Chandler Bowen. He had grown up in the town, but later went to Brooklyn, NY and became a wealthy dry goods merchant. He was also an abolitionist and Republican, who hosted famous Fourth of July celebrations on his property, which included such guests as Ulysses S. Grant (who had to endure Bowen’s teetotaling). The Gothic Revival house and the grounds, which include a boxwood garden, reflect the ideas of Andrew Jackson Downing (as presented in such books as The Architecture of Country Houses) on rural dwellings and country landscaping. The house is now a museum administered by Historic New England.

Oliver Wolcott, Sr. House (1754)

Built for Oliver Wolcott, Sr. in 1754 on South Street in Litchfield, this is the town’s oldest surviving Georgian-style house. During the Revolutionary War, Wolcott was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He later served as Governor of Connecticut (1796-1797). The Colonial Revival wing was added in the 1890s.

Aaron Bissell House (1813)

Built in 1813 for Aaron Bissell (1758-1831) is the Federal (or Adam) style house at 1891 Main Street in East Windsor Hill (now in South Windsor). A three-story ell was added to the house in 1904. Aaron Bissell owned Bissell ‘s Tavern, as well as a store and post office, and was involved in farming and merchant ventures. Next door, to the north, stands a similar house, built in 1812 for Bissell’s partner and son-in-law, Eli Haskell.

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Ellery Hills House (1840)

Built around 1840 for Ellery Hills, a manufacturer of shoes, this Greek Revival house, with an unusual elliptical portico, is a reminder of a time when many other such houses lined Main Street in Hartford in the mid-nineteenth century. Architectural details used on the facade of this house are featured in Chester Hills‘s Builder’s Guide, published in Hartford in 1834.

Noah Webster House (1748)

Noah Webster, the famous lexicographer, was born here in 1758. The house stands on South Main Street in West Hartford (then known as the West Division of Hartford), where Noah Webster grew up on his family’s farm. He would later produce the influential Blue-Backed speller in 1783 and his first dictionary in 1806. The house is a museum open to the public and also houses the West Hartford Historical Society.