Capt. George Dickinson House (1830)

As described in the History of Middlesex County, Connecticut (J. B. Beers & Co., 1884),

The Dickinson family, though not among the first settlers, were yet prominent people on Saybrook Point during and after the Revolutionary war. Captain George Dickinson, who was born in 1770, was for many years a ship master and at times resided in foreign ports as agent. He was at Copenhagen, Denmark, when that city was bombarded by Captain, afterward Lord Nelson, and at his death, in 1857, at the age of 81, was the wealthiest man in the town.

Around 1830, Capt. George Dickinson (1770-1857) built a house at what is now 191 North Cove Road in Old Saybrook. The west end of the building contained a ship chandlery.

Stephen Brooks House (1805)

The house at 384 Saybrook Road in Higganum (in Haddam) was originally erected in 1805 as a three-bay residence with a side hall (the front door being in the right bay). A two-bay addition was constructed in 1981 on the west side (so now the front door is in the central of five bays). The house was built by Stephen Brooks (1777-1860), a manufacturer and carpenter. In 1848 he sold the house to Calvin Hull, whose family owned the house for several decades.

Capt. John Anthony Wolfe House (1809)

At 3 Gravel Street in Mystic is a house, built between 1809 and 1815, that was traditionally called the “Case Bottle House” because it resembled the shape of the cases in which bottles of liquor were once shipped. It is not the only house in the area to have had that title: the same name was applied to the Elijah Williams House in the village of Wolf Neck in Stonington (noted in The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn. (1903), by Grace Denison Wheeler). The house on Gravel Street was built by Capt. John Anthony Wolfe and has been much altered and enlarged over the years. Restored in 1951, it is now a commercial property, home to Grover Insurance.

Ephraim Perkins, Jr. House (1800)

The Town of Chaplin is named for Deacon Benjamin Chaplin (1719-1795). He was a wealthy landowner who bequeathed the funds to establish an ecclesiastical society and construct a meeting house for his community, which would be incorporated as a town in 1822. Before his death, Chaplin sold a plot of land to his son-in-law, Ephraim Perkins (1745-1813), a veteran of the French and Indian War. Chaplin’s Congregational meeting house would be built on a half-acre of this parcel in 1815. Perkins, who had moved to Becket, Massachusetts, upon his marriage to Mary Chaplin in 1771, later gave the rest of his land in Chaplin to his son, Ephraim Perkins, Jr. (1773-1851). On that land the younger Ephraim built the house that stands at 28 Chaplin Street. According to Part III of The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts (1889), by George A. Perkins, Ephraim Perkins married Lucy Merrick on January 1, 1800 and “They resided five years in Mansfield, Conn. [Chaplin was then part of Mandfield], removing in 1805, to Trenton, Oneida Co., New York.” In 1840 they moved to Wisconcin. The Perkins House in Chaplin, the oldest on Chaplin Street, has changed hands many times over the years. The property also has an historic horse barn.

Deacon Simeon Francis House (1800)

At the corner of Nott Street and Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield is a house (248 Nott Street) built in 1800 by Deacon Simeon Francis (1770-1823). Five Children of Simeon Francis would eventually move west, making an epic journey. As described in Indiana and Indianans, Vol. III (1919) by Jacob Piatt Dunn:

Five of the Francis brothers and their two sisters, children of Simeon and Mary Ann, decided after the death of their parents to leave their old home in Wethersfield and seek a new home in the west. Charles and Simeon left home sometime previously. The others embarked on the sloop Falcon at Hartford September 17, 1829, their journey being down the Connecticut River and through Long Island Sound to New York, thence up the Hudson River to Albany and across the state by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, where they were joined by their brother Simeon. A sailing vessel took them over Lake Erie to Sandusky, and thence they procured wagons to cross the State of Ohio to Cincinnati. After a journey fraught with much exposure and lack of proper nourishment they reached Cincinnati, and were thence borne by a small steamboat down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to St. Louis, barely escaping with their lives through the wrecking of one of the boats. They were seventy-seven days in making the journey which can now be made with comfort in less than one-third as many hours.

In 1831 Simeon, Josiah and John went to Springfield, Illinois, taking with them a little old printing press which they brought from Connecticut. On November 10, 1831, the first issue of the Sangamon Journal, now the Illinois State Journal, was brought out by these brothers. Simeon and Allen Francis fostered the youthful ambitions of Abraham Lincoln by loaning him a copy of Blackstone and all the other books possible. They also introduced Mr. Lincoln to the leading social and professional figures of Springfield. It was at the home of Allen Francis that Mr. Lincoln met Miss Todd, whom he subsequently married. Mr. Lincoln reciprocated in 1861 by appointing Simeon Francis paymaster of all the troops in the Northwest, with the rank of colonel, and stationed at Vancouver, Washington. In 1870 he was retired on half pay and returned to Portland, where he established the Portland Oregonian, still a power in the newspaper field.

Mentioned in the above is Allen Francis (1815-1887), who was born in the Wethersfield house. As described in Francis; Descendants of Robert Francis of Wethersfield, Conn. (1906), compiled by Charles E. Francis:

He went to St. Louis when a young man and resided there until 1834. He then moved to Springfield, Ill., and in 1846 he became connected with his brothers. Charles and Simeon, in publishing the Sangamon County Journal, at which time they erected the new Journal buildings. He was for many years a member of the city council of Springfield. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him the first consul to Victoria, Vancouver’s Island. He resigned in 1884. With his sons he was afterwards engaged in the fur trade with the Indians on the Pacific coast. [. . .]

It was through Hon. Allen Francis that Secretary Seward gained the information concerning the varied resources of Alaska which determined him to enter into negotiations with Russia for its purchase. He was a firm and intimate friend of President Lincoln, and it was at his home in Springfield that
Mr. Lincoln met Miss Todd, whom he subsequently married.

Clark Tomlinson House (1820)

Named for Clark Tomlinson, the house at 447 Quaker Farms Road in Oxford was built about 1820. By 1835 it was owned by Asa and Hannah Hawkins and in 1868 was owned by Horace E. Hinman (1819-1902). As related in a biography of his son in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Dutchess County, New York (1897), Horace Hinman

was born in Southbury, Conn., and married a native of that place, Mary Hughes, a lady of Scotch descent. They first settled in Southbury and later in Oxford, Conn., Mr. Hinman following the shoemaker’s trade. He is a Democrat in politics, and he and his wife are both consistent members of the M. E. Church. They had four children[.]

The house was later occupied by tenant farmers, became dilapidated, and was restored in 1971.

Jared Risley House (1860)

Jared Risley purchased the lot at 86-90 Burnside Avenue in East Hartford in 1827. The house that currently stands at that address was either an earlier house that he remodeled or a new house that he built on the site, possibly in the 1860s. Jared Risley (1801-1874) and his son, Seldon (1843-1905) were both carpenters. The house displays features of the Federal and Greek Revival styles.