The house at 174 North Cove Road in Old Saybrook was built in 1799 by Willoughby Lynde, a wealthy sea captain. Willoughby and his father, Samuel Lynde, engaged in farming and trade with the West Indies. Both were also slave owners. Nine enslaved people worked on the Lynde farm and wharf and also increased the family’s wealth by producing cloth. The Lynde House has an ell, which was built c. 1645 as a separate building. In the eighteenth century, the ell was owned by another mariner, Captain Samuel Doty, a West Indies trader and shipbuilder, who had a shipyard, warehouse and wharf on the Connecticut River. Capt. Doty’s own house was torn down in 1813, when the Samuel Hart, Jr. House was built. He used the ell as a bakery for ship’s bread. The ell was attached to the Lynde House about the time of the latter’s construction. The ell is to the right of the house’s front facade, while on the left is a new addition, constructed since 2008.
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