The brick Federal-style house at 3711 Whitney Avenue in Hamden was built around 1830 by Charles Brockett (1803-1884). He manufactured carriage springs (pdf), was part owner in a sawmill and served as town selectman in 1859, 1860 and 1861 (and served in place of Henry Munson in 1862). The house has been much altered and added to over the years. It is now part of the multi-unit condominium complex called Tuttlewyck. (more…)
Capt. Allyn Williams (1769-1813), a carpenter, built the Cape Cod-type house at 2 Allyn Lane in Gales Ferry in Ledyard in 1803. He had earlier owned a house, purchased in 1798, that was near the Upper Wharf, close to the ferry across the Thames River. He died in 1813 and the house was acquired from his widow, Susannah Ormsley Williams, by his third cousin, Christopher Allyn, in 1820. Christoper Allyn was a whaling captain who made five trips between 1831 and 1843 and was a part owner of a store near the Lower Wharf from 1821 until his death in 1871. The house was then owned by his son Noyes B. Allyn, who was an active civic leader and supporter of the church in Gales Ferry. The house has an ell built in 1855.
On a corner of the Green in Branford is the old Academy building, constructed in 1820. This school was established by Rev. Timothy Phelps Gillett, who was pastor of Branford’s Congregational Church from 1808 to 1860. As related in Vol. II of the History of New Haven County (1892), edited by J.L. Rockey:
At Branford village a select school was taught by Reverend Timothy P. Gillett, some time after the war of 1812, which there, also, awakened a desire for schools of a higher grade, and which led to the establishment of an academy, in 1820. Benjamin R. Fowler, Calvin Frisbie, Philemon Tyler, John Beach and others, aided by Mr. Gillett, were active in this movement, and secured the town’s consent to erect the buildings on the south side of the green. A two-story frame house, with a belfry, was put up, which is still standing in that locality. For a number of years Branford Academy had a good reputation, and the stockholders were rewarded by having a school in their midst, which well served its purpose. The academy was continued with varying success until 1866, Miss Jane Hoadley being the last teacher. Others who are remembered as having taught there were: Reverend Gillett, Deacon Samuel Frisbie and Lynde Harrison. The latter was instrumental in securing a school library of several hundred volumes. The upper story of the academy building has long been used as a Masonic hall.
The usefulness of the academy was at an end after the consolidation of the public schools of the town.
The Academy building, which originally stood on the site of the present Town Hall, was moved to the rear of the Congregational Church in 1860. It was sold to the Masons in 1871, but was sometimes rented by the town for overflow school space thereafter. In 1971 the Academy was deeded to the town and in 1974 it was moved to its current site on the Branford Green, at the north-west corner of South Main Street.
According to the National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination for the South Britain Historic District, the house at 712 South Britain Road in South Britain in Southbury was built c. 1795 and was the home of Dr. Baldwin, South Britain’s first physician. A more recent brochure for the South Britain Historic District, however, lists the Wheeler House at 715 South Britain Road as the home of South Britain’s first physician, Dr. Wheeler. The NRHP Inventory Nomination’s description of No. 715 lists it as the S. Johnson & Miss N. Mitchell House and does not mention Dr. Wheeler. The Nomination further relates that, early in the nineteenth century, No. 712 served as “Miss Pierce’s Academy for Fashionable Young Ladies,” which later moved to Litchfield, although other sources state Sarah Pierce‘s Academy was founded in her Litchfield home in 1792.
The building at 42 Main Street in North Stonington was built just before 1809 by Daniel Packer and Jedidiah Randall. It served as a store and for a time as a jail. It was moved from another spot on the same lot in the late nineteenth century. The building was the T.S. & H.D. Wheeler Store (a general store) before it was converted into North Stonington‘s Town Hall in 1904. A neighboring garage was converted into a new Town Hall in 1978. Today the old Town Hall is used for the offices of the selectmen, resident state trooper, and other town officials.
The Cornell Doud, Jr. House, at 20 West Street in Cromwell, was built circa 1807 on the site of a 1692 house that had long been home to the Ranney family. Comfort Ranney sold the old homestead to Doud, who replaced it with a center-chimney Federal-style house. In 1815 Doud, in partnership with Eben Wilcox, erected at distillery on the property. The house passed from the Doud family in 1883 and was later owned by Edmund Butterworth and then by his son Burton Butterworth.
The house at 780 Harbor Road in the Southport section of Fairfield was built circa 1830 by Walter Perry (1770-1837) for his son Gurdon Perry (1807-1869). The Perry family were ship owners and merchants and Walter Perry owned Southport’s waterfront district. While typical of the large homes of wealthy merchants of the time, the house was built when Southport was just about to experience two decades of phenomenal growth as a shipping port. Merchants in Southport would soon be constructing even grander residences with greater architectural ambitions.
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