Connecticut Hall (1750)

 

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Connecticut Hall, built in part by at least five enslaved laborers, was erected between 1750 and 1752 and is Yale‘s oldest surviving building. Located in the University’s Old Campus, its design was based on Harvard’s Georgian-style Massachusetts Hall. Money to fund its construction was obtained through the sale of a French ship, captured during King George’s War. Yale’s president, Thomas Clap, hired Francis Letort from Philadelphia and Thomas Bills from New York to build the dormitory, which would house a number of notable residents, including Noah Webster, James Hillhouse, John Trumbull, Eli Whitney and, most famously, Nathan Hale (A statue of Hale now stands outside the building). Later, when more buildings were being constructed for Yale’s “Brick Row” in the Federal style, the gambrel-roofed Connecticut Hall was no longer in fashion. In 1797, John Trumbull removed the old roof and enlarged the building. The building, renamed to South Middle College was again remodeled in 1882 and used for various purposes in the following years.

In 1900, with the buildings of the Brick Row being demolished, Connecticut Hall was saved from destruction by a group of alumni, led by Professor Henry W. Farnam. In 1905, with the Colonial Revival under way, alumni funds supported yet another remodeling, by architect Grosvenor Atterbury, which restored a gambrel roof to the building. Again standing out with the construction of new Gothic buildings around Yale’s Old Campus, a sense of balance was restored with the construction of McClellan Hall, a reproduction and partner to Connecticut Hall, in 1925. Today, Connecticut Hall is home to Yale’s College Faculty meeting room, the Comparative Literature and Philosophy departments, and a computer lab. Please take a look at today’s companion post about Massachusetts Hall at Historic Buildings of Massachusetts.

Gridley-Case Cottages (1771)

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The Gridley and Case Cottages, on Main Street in Farmington, were constructed in the late eighteenth century and are rare surviving examples of modest workmen’s cottages. The two cottages were built sometime after 1771, when John Case purchased the land. Case himself lived in his homestead nearby and workmen occupied the cottages. At some point, Alexander Gridley started living in the smaller of the two, which he sold it to John’s son, Coral Case, in 1797. It was then used as a hat shop by Coral, who died in 1800. Many people owned or lived in the cottages over the years, until they were sold, in 1970, to James McArthur Thomson, who was living in the Gen. George Cowles House. He worked to preserve the cottages, which were left to the town at his death in 1993 and were eventually donated to the Farmington Historical Society in 1998. The society’s offices are now in the larger cottage, while the smaller cottage is rented out as a residence.

The Lewis Walpole Library (1784)

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Maj. Solomon Cowles of Farmington, a wealthy merchant and Revolutionary War General, built a Georgian-style house on Main Street in 1784, recognizable today for its long columned porch. The home remained in the Cowles family until it was purchased by Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis in 1926. Lewis was a 1918 Yale graduate, collector, author, and the editor of The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence. He remodeled the house in 1928 to house the Walpole Collection he had gathered, consisting of rare books and manuscripts, relating to Horace Walpole and his times, and “the largest and finest collection of eighteenth-century British graphic art outside the British Museum.” Lewis and his wife, Annie Burr Auchincloss Lewis (sister of Hugh Auchincloss of Newport’s Hammersmith Farm), lived in a house next door. Lewis died in 1979 and the library, with its collection and grounds, was given to Yale University and is now a department of the university’s library. Known as the Lewis Walpole Library, the site includes the Cowles House, the adjacent Root House (where visiting scholars can stay) and the Day-Lewis Museum of Indian Artifacts. The property recently underwent a major renovation project.

For those interested in Horace Walpole, nineteenth century editions of his works can be found through Google Books, including his well-known Castle of Otranto, as well as collections of his letters and memoirs. He also wrote Anecdotes of Painting in England and A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England.

Poisson-Belden Cottage (1741)

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On the grounds of the Simsbury Historical Society (near the Phelps Tavern) is a eighteenth century cottage, which was moved there in the 1970s. It was originally built by John Poisson, a weaver, and was later owned by Horace Belden (there is a pdf file with information on Belden, who did a great deal for the town during his long life). The front of the house is left unpainted to display the original clapboards.

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.