The Bull Homestead, in Woodbury, was built by Deacon Samuel Bull, a blacksmith who came to the town from Farmington. He adopted Thomas Bull, the son of his brother.
Bull Homestead (1745)
Samuel Huntington House (1785)
Samuel Huntington, born in Scotland, CT, had a notable career during the Revolutionary War and after. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he also served as the last President of the Continental Congress (1779-1781) and the first “President of the United States of America in Congress Assembled” under the Articles of Confederation in 1781. He was later the Chief Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court (1784-1785) and Governor of Connecticut (1786-1796). Buried in the Old Norwichtown Cemetery, located behind his Norwich home, Huntington was re-interred in the Samuel Huntington Tomb in 2003. There has been an effort in Norwich to create a Huntington Presidential Library. Huntington’s house, on East Town Street, was built in 1783-1785 and has been extensively modified over the years, with later Greek Revival style additions.
Elijah Lewis House (1790)
The Elijah Lewis House was built around 1780 or 1790 by Farmington‘s master builder, Judah Woodruff. Lewis was a farmer and served as a quartermaster in the Revolutionary War. Both he and his son, Elijah Lewis, Jr., were abolitionists and the house was a station on the Underground Railroad (it is on the Connecticut Freedom Trail). In 1977, to improve the flow of traffic on Farmington Avenue, the house was moved back from the road and rotated 90 degrees, with a new address on Mountain Spring Road. The house, which is currently for sale, was also occupied by the artist, Robert B. Brandegee, who left paintings on some of the interior door panels.
Elkanah Cobb House (1769)
The Elkanah Cobb House, on Water Street in Stonington Borough, is one of the oldest in town. Built in 1760s, the Cobb House is a one-and-a-half story structure with a gambrel roof and unusual 9 over 6 sash windows. Cobb was the owner of the house at the time when Stonington was bombarded by British ships on August 19, 1814 during the War of 1812. According to The Homes of our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn., by Grace Denison Wheeler (1903), the house “stood in the thick of the fight near the [American] battery, and so has many scars received during the bombardment.” Benson J. Lossing visited Stonington in 1860 and mentions the house in his Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (1869).
Daniel Rust House (1731)
The Daniel Rust House, on Main Street in Coventry, was built in 1731. The house is now a Bead and Breakfast. According to its website, the house, “was established in 1800 by the Rose family as a place to rest and refresh yourself before undertaking the remainder of your journey.”
Deming-Young House (1784)
In 1784, Thomas Deming built a farmhouse on land in Newington (then still a part of Wethersfield) that had been in the Deming family since 1671. Thomas and his brother, Daniel, who had answered the Lexington Alarm during the revolutionary War, were both shoemakers. Thomas was also a founder and officer of Christ Church (Episcopal), organized in 1797 in what is now Newington. Another brother, Elizur Deming, also attended the church, and its business meetings and services were held in his house until a church building was completed. This may have been the same house built by Thomas Deming. The property was purchased by Fred Young in 1918 and was later inherited by his son, who died in 1990. In 1998, the Town of Newington purchased the Deming-Young Farm to prevent the house from being torn down and the land subdivided. The Deming-Young Farm Foundation was founded in 2001 to restore the house. The plan for the future is to make it a learning center focused on eighteenth century farm life.
The Capt. Amos Palmer House (1787)
The Capt. Amos Palmer House is located on Main Street in Stonington Borough. The house was built by Amos Palmer in 1787, replacing his earlier home on the same site, which had burned down when a barn on an adjoining property caught on fire. When a British cannonball hit the house during the War of 1812, Capt. Palmer waited until it had cooled and brought it to the fort to be returned to its sender! From 1837 to 1840, the house was occupied by Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler, whose sister was married to Dr. George E. Palmer of Stonington, and her family. Her husband, the engineer Major George Washington Whistler, was working on the Providence to Stonington railroad. Their son, the artist James McNeill Whistler, was a child at the time. He later painted the famous portrait of his mother in 1871. The family frequently revisited the house. In the twentieth century, it was the home of the poet, Stephen Vincent Benét, and later the Canadian artist, author and filmmaker, James Houston.
