In 1796, John Pelton, Jr. erected a one and a half-story gambrel-roofed house at what is now 64 Indian Hill Avenue in Portland. At a later date the house was raised to a full two stories, with the second story having a hewn overhang above the first story.
In 1850 a small square building was erected to serve as a temporary lock-up near where the railway Depot is located today in village of Noank in Groton. In 1913 the building was sold and moved to its current lot at 87 Main Street in Noank. It was then used for various purposes over the years, including a barbershop, a speakeasy, and an insurance office, before becoming a private residence. Additions over time have included a rear kitchen, side garage, and a back porch.
Allen Avery (1838-1915) was a businessman in Mystic who was very active in the local community. He worked as a ship joiner before entering the undertaking business, later opening a furniture store and then engaging in the real estate. He is associated with several houses in Mystic, including his 1874 house on Pearl Street on the Groton side and a later house on East Main Street on the Stonington side. In about 1879 he also erected the building (pictured above) at 6 Pearl Street. It’s described in the National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the Mystic River Historic District as a “1 1/2-story cottage with roof of four gables, one in each direction,” as well as “Italianate solid brackets at the eaves returns of the front gable.” Also, “Window caps have small brackets.”
As related in the booklet The Mystic River Historical Society: Our First 40 Years (researched and written by Patricia M. Schaefer) the building was purchased in 1985 by Sandor Balint, first violinist
of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He and his wife Joyce, who was also a violinist, felt it was a good omen that the house had been owned in 1912 by a man named Welcome Fidler. According to Kelly Sullivan, Fidler was a carriage-maker from Woodville, Rhode Island, where he was the subject of frequent raids by the local authorities for running illegal saloons. He then relocated to the building on Pearl Street in Mystic, where he operated a lunch room and pool hall on the ground floor and lived upstairs. He had not left his old ways behind however, because in 1909 and again six years later, he was raided by the police, who seized quantities of whiskey.
Built in 1878, the house at 30 School Street in the Hazardville section of Enfield has many features of the Italianate style of architecture, including a square shape with bracketed cornice, a rooftop cupola/belvedere, and a one-story columned entrance portico and side porch.
The modernistic brick building at 129 Main Street in Danbury has glass block windows on the second floor. Designed by William E. Lehman, it was originally built in 1929 as a Sears, Roebuck and Co. store and is now a Salvation Army Family Store and Donation Center.
Rev. James Smyth, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Windsor Locks, celebrated the first Catholic Mass to take place in the Broad Brook section of East Windsor in 1856. Later, a mission church dedicated to St Patrick was built on land donated by Broad Brook Catholics and it remained in use until 1880. Originally under the jurisdiction of St. Bernard’s, Rockville, the mission was transferred in 1863 to the new parish of St. Patrick’s in Thompsonville. The cornerstone for a new mission church, located at the intersection of Rye Street, Main Street and Windsorville Road in Broad Brook, was laid by Bishop Lawrence S. McMahon of Hartford in early fall of 1880 and the church was completed late the following year. The church again became a mission of Rockville in 1882 and four years later, in 1886, became a separate parish, dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena. The church has stained glass windows depicting scenes from the life of St. Catherine designed by the artist Emil Frei. The adjoining rectory was completed in 1887. The church has been updated over the years, with a new wing being added in 1957. Now, together with St. Philip Church in East Windsor, St. Catherine’s is part of St. Marianne Cope Parish.
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The house at 598 Main Street in Portland was built circa 1840. It was originally the home of ship carpenter Luther Savage, who married Mary Jane Buck in 1850. In 1927, the house was still occupied by Savage’s descendants, who estimated the house had been built 81 years earlier (1846).
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