Colonial - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Governor Fitch Law Office (1740)

Thomas Fitch (1696-1774), a lawyer, was Governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1754 to 1766. His house, built around 1740, once stood on Earls Hill on the east side of East Avenue in Norwalk. The house was partially burned in the British raid on Norwalk on July 11-12, 1779. Fitch descendants occupied the reconstructed house until 1945. The section of the house that had survived the British raid (part of the house’s kitchen wing) was moved to Mill Hill in 1956 when the rest of the building was demolished to make way for the construction of the Connecticut Turnpike (now I-95). In 1971 the building was restored as a museum to resemble a law office such as one that Governor Fitch might have used in the eighteenth century. The foundations and chimney of the Law Office were constructed using stones from the cellar walls of the original Fitch House. The Law Office is one of three buildings at Mill Hill Historic Park maintained by the Norwalk Historical Society and the Norwalk-Village Green Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Harrison-Linsley House (1724)

Nathaniel Harrison II (1692-1760) built the house at 124 Main Street in Branford in 1724. The house was once thought to have been built around 1680, at which point the land was owned by Daniel Swain, so it is listed as the Swain-Harrison House in the National Register of Historic Places. The house passed to Nathaniel Harrison III and then to his daughter Martha, who married Nicodemus Baldwin. Martha sold the house to Joseph and Lorany (Bradley) Linsley in 1800, so it is also known as the Harrison-Linsley House. The Linsleys’ daughter, Lorany Linsley Smith, lived in the house until her death in 1915 at the age of 100. The Smith family owned it until 1938, when it was acquired by the architectural historian and preservationist J. Frederick Kelly, who restored the house. Upon his death in 1947 Kelly bequeathed the house to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England. Under a long-term lease, the house is maintained by the Branford Historical Society as its museum and headquarters.

Captain Benjamin Allyn II House (1760)

Local tradition holds that the house at 119 Deerfield Road in Windsor was built in 1670 and associates it with Thomas Allyn (1635-1696), which would make it a very early example indeed of a brick house. The house has wood framing which is tied into the brick walls with iron tie-plates. These plates once featured the date of the house, but only the “1” and the “0” survive, although it is agreed that the missing numerals were “6” and “7.” While this could have been 1670, it is more likely, based on architectural evidence and Henry R. Stiles’ History of Ancient Windsor, that house was built in 1760, probably by Captain Benjamin Allyn II, a descendent of Thomas Allyn. Thomas Eggleston is said to have provided the bricks for the house.

David Sage House (1770)

The house at 1062 Worthington Ridge in Berlin is known as the David Sage House in the nomination for the Worthington Ridge Historic District. It is also known as the George Porter House. Built c. 1770, it has elaborate Georgian detailing on its front facade. Among its residents were Dr. Josiah Meigs Ward. In 1825, Berlin suffered an epidemic of the Spotted Fever. As related in Catharine M. North’s History of Berlin (1916):

Dr. Josiah M. Ward was then in his prime, and he had sixty cases of the typhoid on his hands. Day and night he rode and visited his patients until he was so exhausted that he would sleep anywhere, even on horseback. Parson Graves and his family in Westfield were all down with the fever, and it was while in attendance there that Dr. Ward fell asleep on the steps of the church opposite the house. He awoke in a chill—the precursor of the fever, from which in his worn condition he could not rally. He died August 25, 1823, at the age of forty-three. Mrs. Ward and three of their children took the fever. One morning the clock struck eight and the children did not come down to breakfast. Diadema, a half sister, went to the chamber and said, “It is late, you must get up.” She lifted the little Samuel, four years old, and carried him down the stairs, in her arms. On the way he spat on the floor, and Diadema reproved him. The children were never allowed to do such a thing as that in the house.

In was the beginning of the sickness. In twenty-four hours the child was dead. Mary was sick two days and died. Laura’s fever ran two or three weeks and she recovered. The mother was restored to health after a second attack of the disease.

In the late nineteenth century, the house was owned by Burr Kellog Fields (1856-1898), a civil engineer who graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1877. According to his obituary in the Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. XXIV, No. 8 (October 1898):

in 1886 Mr. Field accepted an appointment as Assistant Engineer of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company, of East Berlin, Conn. His advancement with this company was very rapid, and at the time of his death he occupied the important position of Vice-President, having full charge of the making of all contracts. During Mr. Field’s connection with this company its business was much extended, and its product introduced into all parts of the world. In achieving this Mr. Field had no small part, and his death has been a severe loss, not only to the company, but also to his associates.

Eliphalet Dyer House (1715)

Col. Eliphalet Dyer (1721-1807) was one of Connecticut’s notable figures from the period of the Revolutionary War. Born in Windham, he graduated from Yale in 1740 and in 1746 became a lawyer and a Justice of the Peace. Dyer was a founder and leader of the Susquehannah Company, which focused on settling the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. During the French and Indian War, Dyer was a Lt. Colonel in the militia as part of the expedition to capture Fort Crown Point from the French in 1755 and then, as a Colonel in 1758, he led a regiment in support of Amherst’s and Wolfe’s operations in Canada. Dyer served in the Connecticut legislature from 1742 to 1784 and in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1783 (except for 1776 and 1779). Appointed to the Council of Safety in 1775, Dyer served until it was disbanded in 1783. Dyer’s daughter Amelia was married to Joseph Trumbull, who also served in the Continental Congress. A justice of Connecticut’s superior court, Eliphalet Dyer was Chief Justice from 1789 until 1793, when he retired to Windham. His home there was a colonial house (17 North Road) built circa 1705-1715.

Jacob St. John House (1724)

The house at 297 Silvermine Avenue, in the Silvermine section of Norwalk, was built around 1724. The land for the house was deeded to Jacob St. John by his father Ebenezer St. John in 1722. Jacob St. John gave the property to his only son Abraham in 1765. The lean-to, which gives the house a saltbox form, was probably built when the house was originally constructed. The house also has an original fieldstone chimney.

Hezekiah Jarvis House (1789)

The house at 51 East Avenue in Norwalk was built circa 1789 for Hezekiah Jarvis (1746-1838). The son of Capt. Samuel Jarvis, Hezekiah Jarvis was the brother of the Episcopal Bishop Abraham Jarvis. According to The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. III (1893):

Hezekiah Jarvis lived to a patriarchal age and had the privilege of seeing his descendants to the fourth generation. He is described as a man of great mental gifts, possessing in particular a remarkable memory, fine discernment, a notable logical faculty, and great capacity for reasoning. He was a comprehensive and judicious reader and profound thinker. His disposition was pleasant and cheerful and even in extreme old age he was a delightful companion. Withal, he was a sincere and devout Christian, and the influence of his worthy and honorable life in the church is said to have been remarkable. He held office as warden in the church for a period of fifty-four years. He was well informed in ecclesiastical history and in church doctrines and usages, and brought up his family in accordance with his convictions. Hezekiah Jarvis was a man of inflexible integrity, who sustained throughout his life a reputation for an exalted appreciation of duty and a sense of his obligation to his Maker and his fellow-man.

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