Prentice Pendleton House (1820)

Prentice Pendleton, originally from Middlebury Vermont, built a house in 1819-1820 on Main Street in Essex. He had married Almira Pratt of Essex, but sold the house after her death in 1826. It was later owned by Captain Cornelius Doane. Part owner of the ship Cotton Planter, Capt. Doane was a pioneer in the Mobile packet and cotton trade. In the 1850s, he turned his attention from the declining shipping industry to the commercial development of Essex, where he became president of the Saybrook Bank in Essex. Starting in the later nineteenth century, Main Street in Essex began to develop as a retail area and the Doane House was owned by several local businessmen. In the twentieth century, a small store was attached to the house on the east.

Tolland County Courthouse (1822)

Built in 1822 on Tolland Green, the old Tolland County Courthouse replaced an earlier building built in 1785. Like the county jail across the Green, the courthouse was built by public subscription. It was designed by local architects Abner P. Davidson and Harry Cogswell and was built on a lot acquired from Calvin Willey, which had previously been the site of a tavern owned by Wilkes Williams. The last court session was held in the building in 1892 (the court was transferred to Rockville). From 1899 to 1985, the building housed the Tolland Public Library. In 2001, the Library gave the old building to the Tolland Historical Society. The second floor has been restored to a working courtroom appearance and there are also exhibits on the history of the building. The first floor of the old courthouse contains the library of the French Canadian Genealogical Society Of Connecticut.

Bellamy-Ferriday House (1754)

Joseph Bellamy was a prominent Congregationalist minister, theologian and leader during the Great Awakening. He was pastor of the First Church of Bethlehem from 1760 until his death in 1790. Rev. Bellamy was the author of twenty-two books, the best known being True Religion Delineated (1750). In 1760, Bellamy moved into a Bethlehem farmhouse built in 1754. In 1767, he expanded the house and his son David, a farmer and legislator, added Federal-style embellishments (the Palladian pavilion on the south front) in the 1790s. After the Bellamys, some additional changes were made as the house had various other owners. The property continued as a working farm. In 1912, it was acquired as a summer residence by Henry McKeen and Eliza Ferriday of New York. After Henry’s death, his widow and daughter, Caroline Ferriday, continued to make improvements to the house and established a formal garden. After her mother’s death, Caroline Ferriday sought to restore the house, removing later Victorian-era additions. Miss Ferriday was an actress, conservationist and philanthropist. She left her house and furnishings to the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society (now Connecticut Landmarks) upon her death in 1990. Much of her land is now owned by the Bethlehem Land Trust, which she had helped to establish. (more…)

46 Tolland Green (1815)

Perhaps built as early as 1815 by Danforth Richmond, the building at 46 Tolland Green in Tolland served as a general store for a century and a half. Various businesses have occupied space inside over the years and at one time, manufacturer Henry Underwood had a workshop on the second floor. Other businesses included a shoe shop in the 1850s, A.W. Munger’s store in the 1860s, and J.P. Root’s store around 1900. In the mid-twentieth century, the building housed the Red and White grocery store, run by the Clough family, complete with gasoline pump. More recently, the Homestead gift and antiques shop has been located here. Update: Again a store called Red & White is located in the building.

Whitehouse (1799)

The Joseph Battell House, a 1799 mansion off Norfolk Green on the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate, has long been known as “Whitehouse,” its name predating that of the White House in Washington, D.C. The house was built by Joseph Battell, a wealthy merchant whose store had become the market center for the region. He built the house for his future bride, Sarah Robbins, daughter of Rev. Ammi Ruhamah Robbins, minister of the Congregational Church next door. One of their sons, Robbins Battell, was born in the house in 1819 and died there in 1895. An 1839 Yale graduate, Robbins Battell was an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, and a benefactor to his town and Yale University. Called by Frederic S. Dennis “the father of modern Norfolk,” Battell was also a composer and art collector, who had a picture gallery at Whitehouse containing the works of many notable American artists. His only daughter, Ellen, was raised in Whitehouse and later lived there with her second husband, Carl Stoeckel. They were great patrons of music, constructing the Music Shed on their Norfolk estate in 1906. Carl Stoeckel died in 1925 and when Ellen died in 1939, she bequeathed the estate as a trust, primarily for the performance of music under the auspices of Yale University. It continues as the home of the Yale Summer School of Music–Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Whitehouse, which has been enlarged and altered over the years, is currently being renovated.

Litchfield County Jail (1812)

The old Litchfield County Jail, at 7 North Street in Litchfield, built in 1812, is the oldest public building in town and one of the oldest penal facilities in the state. It also has the distinction, unique in the nation, of sharing for many years a wall with the adjacent bank. The jail had a cell block added in 1846 and a three-story wing with additional cell blocks in 1900. In 1992, the jail became a drug treatment center for 30 men serving prison sentences, but was shut down in 1993 and reopened the following year as McAuliffe Manor, a rehabilitation center for women. Since that center’s closing in 2010, the state has sought to sell the building. Among the possibilities being considered for the future of the facility are its conversion into municipal offices or its acquisition by the adjoining bank.