Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Federal Style

Col. James Loomis House (1822)

The house at 208 Broad Street in Windsor was built in 1822 for Colonel James Loomis (1779-1862). Built of bricks manufactured by the Mack Brick Company in Windsor, it was once one of a number of residences that once stood on Broad Street across from Broad Street Green. A descendant of Joseph Loomis, who settled in Windsor in 1639, Col. Loomis was the proprietor of the village store, which stood just south of his house. His wife, Abigail Sherwood Chaffee Loomis (1798-1868), inherited Nancy Toney (1774-1857), Connecticut’s last enslaved person, in 1821. The children of James and Abigail would found what is now the Loomis Chaffee School. The house remained a residence until 1970, when it was converted into a bank.

Rev. John Rathbone House (1775)

Dating to 1775 (and probably later modified in the Federal style) is the home of Rev. John Rathbone (1729-1826) at 87 Water Street in Stonington. Rev. Rathbone was the first minister of the Baptist church in Stonington Borough, organized in 1775. According to the Brown Genealogy, Vol. II (1915), by Cyrus Henry Brown,

He was a Baptist, a patriot of the Revolution, member of the Stonington Committee of Correspondence and Inspection, and signer of the memorial to the Connecticut Assembly praying for cannon to protect the town of Stonington against the British attack on Long Point, in 1777. He organized the Baptist Church at Westford, Mass, in 1780, and became its first pastor, in 1781. He preached at Saratoga, NY, in his ninety-fifth year.

John Bishop House (1810)

The John Bishop House is a Federal-style house in Newent in Lisbon. The Bishop family were early settlers of Lisbon, when it was a part of Norwich. The house is notable for having a well shaft in the pantry/buttery, so the family did not have to go outside to get water. The house is now the John Bishop Museum, run by the Lisbon Historical Society. Work was done in 2011 to replace the house’s wood roofing.

Silas Hoadley House (1790)

Built around 1790, the house at 721 Main Street in Plymouth was the home of Silas Hoadley, a clockmaker. A cousin of the architect and builder David Hoadley, Silas Hoadley (1786-1870) formed the clock-making partnership of Terry, Thomas & Hoadley with Seth Thomas and Eli Terry in 1809. His partners later withdrew to form their own companies and Hoadley continued making clocks on his own until 1849.

John Fuller House (1824)

The house at 463 Halliday Avenue in Suffield was built in 1824 by George Fuller. It remained in the Fuller family (and is known as the John Fuller House) until the Town of Suffield bought the property in 1887 to serve as a Town Farm. The house became the town’s “poorhouse” or “alms house,” whose able-bodied residents were required to work at the adjacent farm. In 1886, a man known as “Old Cato” died in the house who had been a slave owned by Major John Davenport in Stamford in the years before the War of 1812. The house was sold back to private ownership at auction in 1952. (more…)

Ephraim Bound House (1801)

The gambrel-roofed saltbox house at 43 Main Street, facing toward Ferry Street in Essex, was built in 1801 by Ephraim Bound. In 1828, it was purchased by Timothy Starkey, Jr. (he lived next door), who erected a store connected to the house and at a right angle from its northeast corner. The store was operated by Starkey’s son-in-law Joseph Ellsworth and then by a grandson, Timothy Starkey Hayden. The Hayden family occupied the house until 1926. The original store, destroyed in the 1920s, was replaced by a new commercial building in the 1960s. The house is currently also used for retail space.

Andrew Clark House (1740)

Although the Andrew Clark House, at 45 Ross Hill Road in Lisbon, is a central-chimney house built in 1740, its facade displays the elegant detailing of the architecture of the Federal Period (1780s-1820s). These alterations were probably made in 1798, as that date appears in a panel set in the chimney. The National Register of Historic Places nomination for the house gives its date as 1798. When Andrew Clark, who served in the state legislature in 1824, purchased the land in 1792, records did not indicate any buildings standing on the property. Clark died in 1831 and when his widow, Elizabeth Partridge, died in 1858 she left the house to her sister, Dolly Partridge Herskell (aka Haskell) and her husband, George B. Herskell. The house then became known as the Haskell House. It underwent extensive restoration in 1967. Its current owners are dealers in antiques and a modern addition to the property contains an antiques showroom.