Medad Holcomb House (1805)

Medad Holcomb (died 1858) was a farmer in North Guilford who built the house at 2814 Long Hill Road in 1805. (His son, Medad Holcomb, Jr., would later build the house at 95 Fair Street in Guilford in 1848). In 1809, Rev. William F. Vaill acquired the house while he was pastor of the North Guilford Congregational Church. Later alterations to the house include the switch to smaller chimneys and shingle siding. The Holcomb farm, later owned by John Dudley, was operated as a dairy farm for many years and has many surviving barns and outbuildings.

Oxford Hotel (1795)

Happy Independence Day! Pictured above is the former Oxford Hotel, at 441 Oxford Road in Oxford. It was built as an inn in 1795 by brothers Daniel and Job Candee, members of an influential Oxford family, to take advantage of the new Oxford Turnpike. Daniel Candee, Oxford’s first postmaster, operated the inn until about 1811, followed by his nephew, David Candee, who was innkeeper until his death in 1851. Frederick Candee then inherited the inn from his father and ran it for about twelve years, during which time he expanded the business to include a general store. In 1865 the business passed through inheritance to David R. Lum and it then had many owners over the years. In 1936 it moved back some thirty feet from the street when Oxford Road was paved with concrete. The hotel was converted into a private residence in 1941 by Eldridge Seeley. He removed the building’s front porches and added additional dormers and the two-story colonnade. In 1950, the building was reopened to the public by James and Dominica DeMaio as a restaurant known as the Oxford House. The restaurant closed in 2011, but the building was renovated in 2013. A new restaurant opened in 2014, but closed in 2016, followed later that year by the opening of the current restaurant.

Ezra Kelsey House (1815)

The house at 372 Saybrook Road in Higganum in Haddam was built in 1815 by Ezra Kelsey (1789-1881), a blacksmith whose shop was at Higganum Landing, where he supplied the shipbuilding industry. The house’s rear ell, which was moved from the edge of the Connecticut River, may date eighteenth century. The house remained in the Kelsey family until 1964. Ezra’s grandson, Horatio Nelson Kelsey, began using the house as a summer home in 1917 and his daughter, Burnette Kelsey (1898-1988), ran Miss Kelsey’s kindergarten in the house from the 1940s to the early 1960s. She sold the house to Richard and Marjorie DeBold, who have maintained such features as the circa-1820 Chinese-themed dining room wallpaper and the beam by the front door, where members of the Kelsey family marked their heights for several generations.

Stephen Main House (1781)

The house at 1 Wyassup Road in North Stonington, known as the Stephen Main Homestead, is the headquarters of the North Stonington Historical Society. Built in 1781, the house was first owned by Luther Avery, who ran Avery Mills in town. Stephen Main bought the house in 1861. Born in North Stonington in 1805, Main went to New York City at age seventeen. There he ran a successful butter stall and became an extensive dealer in real estate. He returned to North Stonington in 1856 and purchased a sawmill and gristmill, located at the site of the lower dam on the Shunock River. He apparently constructed the present dam about 1850. The house was later owned by Fred Stewart Greene, an artist who was born in North Stonington, but was raised in Westerly, RI, where he later had his art studio. From 1911-1923, Greene operated an art school at Greene Gables cottage on the Hewitt Farm (in 2017 the town voted to demolish the cottage, which had been deemed unsafe). The North Stonington Historical Society, founded in 1970, acquired the Stephen Main House from Greene’s heirs in 1980.

Capt. Nathaniel Farnham House (1800)

The original owner of the house at 61 Waterside Lane in Clinton, built in 1800, was Captain Nathaniel Farnham. It is said that people living in the house were the first to see the Hartford and New Haven train passing by c. 1852 by climbing to the top of a barn on the property. Caroline A. Kelsey Oakes (born 1851) lived in the house for many years. She was the widow of Captain Lester R. Oakes, who commanded a schooner, the Marian, owned by the Eliot brothers.