Built in 1769, on Sedgwick Road in what is now West Hartford, for Benjamin Colton, son of the Rev. Benjamin Colton who was the West Division of Hartford’s first minister from 1713 until his death in 1759. It was next owned by the first owner’s son, Joseph Colton, and later by his daughter and her husband, Dr. Edward Brace.
The house built on South Main Street in West Hartford for Asa Gillet in 1760 (although it may date as early as 1725) is one of the oldest on Main Street. Asa’s grandfather, Joseph Gillet, was a signer of the petition in 1710 that requested a West Division of Hartford be established. In that year, the population of what would later become West Hartford was 164.
Built in 1772, on Old Main Street in East Windsor Hill for Smith Bailey, a goldsmith and silversmith. Bailey was married to a granddaughter of Timothy Edwards and had a shop in the building that is now the East Windsor Hill Post Office. His gambrel-roofed house was later owned by neighbor Lucy Webster, who sold it to Daniel Burnap in 1786. Burnap was a famous clock maker, who also worked with silver and brass in his East Windsor workshop. The most famous apprentice he trained was Eli Terry, who was born in the town and would become a prominent clock maker and a pioneer in industrial manufacturing.
Built around 1774 in Guilford by the blacksmith, Thomas Griswold III, for his sons, John and Ezra. It eventually became the property of their cousin George, and was passed down through his descendants until 1958, when it was purchased by the Guilford Keeping Society. This historical society preserves the house as a museum and has undertaken two major restorations, in 1974 and 1995. (more…)
Possibly built sometime between 1690-1710, although it might also date back to 1660, the Hyland House in Guilford is a saltbox house that was most likely constructed for the sheep farmer, George Hyland, who died in 1693. It was later owned by his grandson, Ebenezer Parmelee, who was a shipwright and a metal/woodworker. Parmelee built New England’s first steeple clock for Guilford’s Congregational Church in 1727.
The house was in danger of demolition in 1916, but was saved by the Dorothy Whitfield Historic Society , who opened it as a museum of colonial life in 1918.
The house in Guilford built in 1639 by Henry Whitfield is the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England. It was originally one of four stone houses built by the newly arrived English colonists to be part of the settlement’s defenses and to serve as homes for the town’s leaders. Whitfield, the community’s first minister, returned to England in 1651, following the execution of Charles I and the assumption of power by the Parliamentarians. The house has been operated as a state-owned museum since 1899, undergoing an initial restoration in 1903, and further work in the 1930s. Update: Here’s an interesting blog post about the Whitfield House.
Built around 1711-1720, on Broad Street in Wethersfield, the Buttolph-Williams House was at one time thought to date to the 1690s, when David Buttolph owned the part of the Buttolph family lot on which the house was built. More recent research of land tax records now indicates that house was most likely built during the period the land was owned by Benjamin Belden, who bought the lot in 1711 and sold it to Daniel Williams in 1721, by which time the presence of a “Dwelling House” is clearly indicated in the records. Although not constructed as early as was once assumed, it is still an excellent example of a seventeenth century-style post-medieval English house and shows that a more traditional style continued to be built in the Connecticut River Valley into the eighteenth century.
What was later known as the “Older Williams House” (which can be seen as it appeared before its restoration in a 1930s photograph) was restored in the 1950s and is considered the most faithful restoration of a house of its type in the CT River Valley. The house also helped to inspire the local author, Elizabeth George Speare, to write her historical novel for young adults, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which won the Newbery Medal in 1959. The Buttolph-Williams House was used as a model for the house depicted in the book, which takes place in Wethersfield in the 1680s.
Today, the Buttolph-Williams House is open to the public as a house museum, owned by the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society. Tours are conducted by the staff of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum.
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