William Tully House (1750)

In 1745, William Tully of Saybrook divided his property among his heirs, with land at North Cove going to his son, also named William Tully. Soon after (c. 1750), the second William Tully built the house that still stands at 135/151 North Cove Road in Old Saybrook. Perhaps starting with just one room, the house has been much enlarged over the years. The house is also known as Heartsease, perhaps for the flower Viola tricolor that once grew in the yard. The name may also have originated during the period of time the building served as a summer house for female workers. At one time the house was known as the Whittlesey House for Captain John Whittlesey, who seems to have owned it at some point in the eighteenth century. During the Revolutionary War, on the night of August 8, 1779, a notable incident took place at the house. A group of Tories from Middletown had been caught having brought goods down the Connecticut River to sell to the British. Their confiscated merchandise was stored in the basement of the Tully House under the charge of the third William Tully, then 21 years old. As related by Mabel Cassine Holman in “Along the Connecticut River” (The Connecticut Magazine, Vol. XI, No. 4, 1907):

eight Tories came to the house and demanded entrance. Tully refused to open the door. Without further words it was broken in. Taking his old flint gun, Tully fired; the musket-ball passed through the first man, who still advanced, but the one directly back of him dropped dead. Tully turned upon the other six, wounding one with his bayonet; the remainder escaped by the windows. When the first man whom Tully shot discovered the ball had passed through him he dropped dead with one hand on the window and the other grasping a chest of tea.

The fourth William Tully was a noted doctor. Born in the house in 1785, he graduated from Yale in 1806 and then studied at Dartmouth Medical College, receiving his medical license in 1810. He practiced medicine in various places, including Middletown, CT and Albany, NY, before serving as professor of materia medica and therapeutics at the Medical Institution of Yale College from 1829 to 1842. As related in Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, Vol. VI (1912):

For a time his relations with his colleagues were satisfactory; but eventually he was dissatisfied with his compensation, and imagined that there was a conspiracy to slander him, so that he ceased giving his lectures in the spring of 1841. His resignation of his professorship was not accepted until August, 1842. Subsequently he spent nearly a year in South Carolina, without his family. In the spring of 1851 he removed to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he died on February 28, 1859, in his 74th year. During his later years his professional occupation was mainly in consultation, and his circumstances were sadly straitened. He was buried in New Haven.

Dr. Tully was much respected during his lifetime as a particularly learned doctor and a research-oriented professor. As related in Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield of the Present Century (1893), by Charles, Wells Chapin:

The late Noah Webster, D.D., in the preparation of his dictionary, acknowledged his indebtedness to Dr. Tully for important aid, in that he had the supervision of the department of the work relating to the subject of medicine. Dr. Tully died February 28, 1859, aged 73 years

In 2002, the Tully House was at the center of a preservation struggle between an owner who wanted to demolish it and preservationists.

Grumman-St. John House (1750)

The earliest core of the house at 93 East Street in Norwalk dates to at least 1750 (and perhaps earlier). It was built by Samuel Grumman, a carpenter and builder who came from Fairfield to erect Norwalk’s second meeting house. During the Revolutionary War, the Grumman House was at the center of the Battle of Norwalk in July 1779, when General William Tryon’s raiding forces burned much of the town. The house was damaged, but it was rebuilt in the 1780s and expanded in the nineteenth century. The current roof was added in the 1870s. In 1805, the Grumman family had sold the house to Stephen Buckingham St. John, whose descendants, including the Hoyt family, owned it until 1925. The building was subdivided into apartments in 1928.

In 2001, the neighboring Norwalk Inn & Conference Center purchased the house with the intention of demolishing it to make way for an addition to the hotel. Preservationists rallied to block these plans and preserve the historic house. Litigation ensued and in 2010, after an extended legal battle, a compromise was reached: the Inn would renovate the dilapidated building to contain extended stay suites with permission being granted to the Inn itself to expand to a third floor. The renovations were completed in 2013.

Samuel North House (1707)

The house at 221 South Road in Farmington was built by Samuel North (1671-1707), a merchant, sometime after he acquired the lot in 1701 and before his death, in Boston, in 1707. The year before he had willed the house and farm to his then one-year-old nephew, Josiah North (1705-1777), who later sold it to his younger brother Samuel (1708-1796) in 1736/7. This younger Samuel‘s house eventually passed to his son, Samuel North, Jr. (1740-1806), and then to Samuel, Jr.’s son Linus North (1774-1828). The property was sold out of the North family in 1829 and has passed through various owners. Alterations were made to the house in the mid-nineteenth century. The farm continued in operation until 1947. Much of the surrounding land has since been altered by the construction of Interstate 84 and residential development, but the house still has a prominent location on an elevated site with views of the Hartford skyline.

Benedict Ives Homestead (1750)

The house at 257 Fenn Road in Cheshire is described in Edwin R. Brown’s Old Historic Homes of Cheshire, Connecticut (1895):

This old but well-preserved house is situated about one hundred yards directly south of the Silas Ives place. The main part was built by Nathaniel Ives in about the year 1750. Nathaniel was the youngest son of Deacon Joseph Ives, Cheshire’s first settler[.]

Nathaniel Ives had six sons who all served in the American Revolution. His son Jotham, according to Brown,

took an active part in the defence of his country, enlisting under Captain Bunnell of Wallingford, whose company joined Wadsworth’s Brigade to reinforce Washington’s army at New York. He was engaged in the battle of Long Island, August 7. 1776, and White Plains, October 28th, the same year; also accompanied Washington on his retreat through New Jersey. On his return from the war, he became part owner in his father’s house, and later received a deed for his entire interest. He married Lillis Fisk of Providence. R.I.

As Brown relates, their son,

Benedict Ives built the addition to this house and resided here until his death, at the age of 83 years. Uncle Benedict was well known throughout the town as a man fond of his books and a good story. His wife, Betsy Bristol (Aunt Betsy she was called), was noted for her hospitality to friend or traveler, and it was a common saying, by those who frequently passed her door, that “If we can reach Aunt Betsy’s by noon, we are sure of a good dinner.”

Roger Hooker House (1769)

The Georgian Colonial house at 24 Main Street in Farmington dates to c. 1769, but it may incorporate the earlier home of John Hooker (1665-1745), son of Rev. Samuel Hooker, built around 1688. The house eventually passed to John Hooker‘s grandson, Roger Hooker, Jr. (1751-1830), who later sold it to Col. Isaac Cowles. It then passed to the Colonel’s son Maj. Timothy Cowles (1784-1858), who sold it in 1834 to store-owner William Gay.

Arthur Miller – Marilyn Monroe House (1783)

Glimpsed through the trees in the image above is a house that was once the home of two of the most famous people of the twentieth century. Located at 232 Tophet Road in Roxbury, it has been much altered over the years. It was built for a Revolutionary War veteran and was later the residence of playwright Arthur Miller and his wife (from 1956 to 1961) Marilyn Monroe. The couple had originally planned to replace the old farmhouse with a new home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but they decided the plan produced by the famous architect was too impractical and expensive. According to Homes of Old Woodbury (1959), p. 247, the house was built about 1783 by Captain David Leavenworth. Sheldon Leavenworth sold it to Elliot Beardsley in 1847 and twenty years later it was acquired by Charles N. Ward. Frederick H. Leavenworth bought the house in 1888 and his son sold it to Miller in 1949, the year the playwright wrote Death of a Salesman at his first Roxbury home. Miller lived in Roxbury from 1947 until his death in 2005. The Leavenworth House has has remained in Miller’s family. Ten years after his death, his daughter donated a 100-acre parcel to the Roxbury Land Trust.