Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Colonial

Aaron Bronson House (1785)

The house at 846 Southford Road in Southbury was built circa 1785. The house may have been inherited by Aaron Bronson from his father, Noah Bronson. A cordwainer (shoemaker) and button maker, Aaron Bronson (1768-1834) left the house to his son, Augustus, who sold it in 1847. With the exception of a later Greek Revival doorway, the house’s exterior is typical of a late eighteenth-century Cape. The interior is notable for its early Federal-style features. The house has a later kitchen ell, attached at the left rear around 1820. A modern wing was added to the rear of the ell in 1987.

Daniel Eels House (1782)

Daniel Eels (1757-1851), a cooper, built a house on Main Street in Cromwell around 1782. He moved to Whitestown, New York in 1795 and sold the property, which then had a number of owners until 1802, when it was purchased by William Smith, who then sold it to his brother Capt. John Smith. The house (373 Main Street) may actually have been built at that time, instead of the earlier date of 1782. In the late nineteenth century, this Colonial/Federal house was altered in the Queen Anne style.

Rev. John Trumbull House (1772)

Rev. John Trumbull (1715-1787) became pastor of the Congregational Church in Watertown in 1739. A slave owner, Rev. Trumbull married Sarah Whitman, daughter of Rev. Samuel Whitman of Farmington, in 1744. He was also the uncle of Connecticut’s Revolutionary War governor Jonathan Trumbull. Rev. Trumbull’s first house in town, no longer standing, was a saltbox on the east side of Main Street, south of the church. In 1772 he built a larger house just next to the church. Located at 40 DeForest Street, the house became a tavern (it was Lockwoood’s Tavern and then David Woodward’s Tavern) in the 1790s and was remodeled with a large ballroom on the third floor. Shed dormer windows on the roof and Neoclassical porches at either side of the house were added after 1900.

Isaac Hoadley House (1757)

The house at 9 Totoket Road in Branford was built around 1757, the year that its first owner, Isaac Hoadley (1728-1812), married Elizabeth Blackstone (1731-1818). According to The Hoadley Genealogy (1894) by Francis Bacon Trowbridge:

Isaac Hoadley was a carpenter by trade and probably built the old house in which he, his son Abel, and some of his descendants lived. He inherited his father’s farm in the Damascus district of Branford, and was a well-to-do farmer. He was a leading member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Branford and was its junior warden 1794-1804 and 1806-1807, and senior warden in 1805. He and his wife were buried in Damascus burying-ground.

The house has a Greek Revival doorway, added around 1840 when the house appears to have been substantially renovated.

Raymond-Bradford Homestead (1710)

The Raymond-Bradford Homestead is located on Raymond Hill Road in Montville. As it exists today, the house contains a mixture of eighteenth and nineteenth-century elements. The original part of the building was completed around 1710. The original gable roof was replaced by a hipped roof in about 1820. The original center chimney was replaced by two small brick ones circa 1870. The front door was also altered at that time to accommodate an enlarged hallway. The house was built by Mercy Sands Raymond, one of the noteworthy women of colonial Connecticut and Rhode Island. According to the History of New London County (1882), by Duane Hamilton Hurd:

Joshua Raymond, born Sept. 18, 1660, son of Joshua Raymond, married, April 29, 1683, Mercy Sands, daughter of James Sands, of Block Island. They resided at Block Island. Mr. Raymond having his business in New London, was absent from his family much of the time. The care and management of the home affairs devolved upon his wife, who was a woman of great energy and executive ability. He died at his residence on Block Island in 1704. Soon after his death she removed with her six children to the North Parish of New London, now Montville, where she with Maj. John Merritt purchased a tract of land containing about fifteen hundred acres. She built a house on a commanding site, on what has since been called “Raymond Hill.” Here with her son Joshua she lived until her death. In his will he gave to his son Joshua “the homestead at Block Island, one hundred sheep, twenty cattle, a team and cart,” also “his father’s homestead farm in the Mohegan fields.” She died at Lyme, while on a visit to her friends, May 3, 1741, aged seventy-eight years, and was buried near the stone church in that town.

Mercy Sands Raymond‘s name is also connected to that of Captain Kidd, as related by Frances Manwaring Caulkins in her History of New London:

It is this Mercy Raymond, whose name has been connected, by a mixture of truth and fable, with the story of the noted pirate, Captain Kidd. Mr. Raymond died in 1704, “at the home-seat of the Sands family,” which he had bought of his brother-in-law, Niles, on Block Island. It was a lonely and exposed situation, by the sea-shore, with a landing-place near, where strange sea-craft, as well as neighboring coasters, often touched. Here the family dwelt, and Mr. Raymond being much of the time absent in New London, the care and management of the homestead devolved upon his wife, who is represented as a woman of great thrift and energy.

The legendary tale is, that Capt. Kidd made her little harbor his anchorage-ground, alternately with Gardiner’s Bay; that she feasted him, supplied him with provisions, and boarded a strange lady, whom he called his wife, a considerable time; and that when he was ready to depart, he bade her hold out her apron, which she did, and he threw in handfuls of gold, jewels and other precious commodities, until it was full, as the wages of her hospitality.

This fanciful story was doubtless the development of a simple fact, that Kidd landed upon her farm, and she being solitary and unprotected, took the part of prudence, supplied him freely with what he would otherwise have taken by force, and received his money in payment for her accommodations. The Kidd story, however, became a source of pleasantry and gossip among the acquaintances of the family, and they were popularly said to have been enriched by the apron.

The house descended in the same family for generations.

Dr. Wheeler Homestead (1735)

Also known as the “Cassidy Saltbox” (it was once owned by John H. Cassidy), the house at 715 South Britain Road in the South Britain section of Southbury is an excellent example of an integral saltbox house. Probably built before 1735, it was the home, around 1750, of a Dr. Wheeler, South Britain‘s first physician. The house was owned by Rev. Bennett Tyler from 1807 to 1822. During that time, Rev. Tyler was pastor at the South Britain Congregational Church. He then became president of Dartmouth College.

Solomon Tyler House (1771)

The house at 260-268 East Main Street in Branford was built circa 1771 by Solomon Tyler. This may be the Solomon Tyler of Branford who was born in 1745 and died in 1819. He married Dorcas Fiske of Haddam in 1772.