In 1827, Arnold Ward purchased land on Main Street in Durham from David Smith and proceeded to build a house and blacksmith shop on the property. The following year he sold the house and land, except for the blacksmith shop, to Silvester Ward. The house’s front porch was added later.
The John Turner House (also known as the Turner-Stebbins-Chamberlain House) is a brick Federal-style structure at 290 North River Road (at the intersection with Route 44) in Coventry. The house was built around 1812/1814 for John Turner, one of several incorporators of the Coventry Glass Company, which made and sold a variety of bottles and other glass products from c. 1813 to 1848. Turner was later one of the founders of the Ellenville Glass Company in New York state. That company was organized in 1836 by a group of glass makers from Coventry and Willington, Connecticut. Currently under development is the Museum of Connecticut Glass, which has owned the Turner House in Coventry since 1994. The house will contain the museum’s permanent exhibits and offices, while a second building, acquired by the Museum in 2005, will house the institution‘s education and activity facilities.
Born in Wolcott in 1785, Seth Thomas first worked in the clock business under Eli Terry and later purchased Terry’s clock-making business in 1810. Thomas moved to Plymouth Hollow (later named Thomaston in his honor) in 1813 and founded the famous Seth Thomas Clock Company, which continued in business until the 1980s. In 1838, Seth Thomas purchased the house at 237 Main Street in Thomaston from Marvin Blakeslee. It had probably been built in about 1825 and is the only remaining of the five houses owned by the Thomas family on Main Street. In 1850, Thomas sold it to his daughter, Amanda Thomas Bradstreet, whose husband, Thomas Jefferson Bradstreet, was a descendant of the Puritan poet, Anne Bradstreet. The house remained in the family until the death of Miss Edith Bradstreet Mather in 2004. The following year, the Town of Thomaston bought the property from her surviving sister, Clara-Louise Mather Riggs. The Thomas-Bradstreet House, restored by the Thomaston Historical Commission, is now a house museum open to the public.
The building at 53 Warwick Street in Middletown was built in 1814 to house the town’s poor. The Alms House was used as a poorhouse until the Town Farm opened on Silver Street in 1853. A number of businesses and organizations have since used the building, starting with the Hubbard and Curtis Hardware Company, and later including the Middletown Fire Arms and Specialty Company, the Middletown Rifle Club and the C.B. Stone Oil Company. The building once had a classical cupola on the roof and a central pavilion with a projecting gable roof (both were later removed, but the pavilion has been restored). It is now owned by by Lee Godburn, who has a hair salon in the building.
Built c. 1789-1790, the Thomas Sanford House, at 111-113 North Street in Milford, was doubled around 1850 (it’s been called a “double dutch house”). The long front porch was added about 1880.
At 95 East Main Street in Clinton is a Federal-style house built in 1807 by Edward Wright, Sr. and later inherited by his eldest son, Edward Wright, Jr. His middle of three sons, born in this house, was Horatio Gouverneur Wright. He was a West Point graduate who achieved the rank of general during the Civil War. After the death of Gen. John Sedgwick (also from Connecticut) during the Overland Campaign of 1864, Gen. Wright replaced him as the 6th Corps Commander. He later led VI Corps in the Shenandoah Valley and at the Siege of Petersburg. Since 2002, the house has been the M. Sarba Fine Art Café.
The house at 39 Waterside Lane in Clinton was built about 1800 for John Wellman. His daughter later willed it to the Baptist Missionary Society, which sold it to John Bliss.
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