Federal Style - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Col. George Foote House (1810)

Nut Plains is a section of Guilford, named for the abundant hazelnuts found there by early colonial settlers. Before the establishment of the Boston Post Road through Guilford, a seventeenth century thoroughfare crossed East River at Foote’s Bridge Road in lower Nut Plains, where one of the last unpaved sections of the original New York to Boston carriage road survives today. In this neighborhood is the house built in 1810-1811 by Col. George Foote. Although the house has an address of 829 Goose Lane, it’s front facade faces Foote’s Bridge Road. George Foote farmed on the property of his grandfather, General Andrew Ward, and replaced the old Ward farmhouse with his new Federal-style home. This earlier house once stood on the current site of the front yard of 829 Goose Lane and its history was linked to a number of notable individuals.

Colonel Andrew Ward IV purchased a farm in nut plains in 1740. He fought in the French and Indian War and was at the Siege of Fort Louisbourg. Col Ward‘s son, Andrew Ward V, was also at the battle, and later rose to the rank of general in the Revolutionary War. He inherited lands from his father and lived in the old farmhouse. His eldest daughter, Roxana, had married Eli Foote, who died leaving his widow penniless with ten children. Roxana and the children, one of whom was Col. George Foote, came to live on their grandfather Andrew Ward’s farm and the farmhouse came to be called “Castle Ward” by the children. Gen. Ward also laid out the the private Foote Cemetery at Sandy Knoll. The cultured Ward-Foote family hosted many guests, including the young poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and the Rev. Lyman Beecher, who married Gen. Ward’s granddaughter, named Roxana after her mother. Lyman and Roxana Foote Beecher‘s famous children included Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. After the death of her mother, the five-year-old Harriet Beecher was brought to stay at the Nut Plains farm by her aunt, Harriet Foote–the first of many happy visits there over the years.

John B. Chittenden House (1814)

Possibly built earlier, the house of John Baldwin Chittenden, on Boston Street in Guilford, was updated with Federal-style additions, including a tripartite window (similar to that on the Deming-Standish House in Wethersfield) in 1814. In 1831-1832, Chittenden and his family, along with others from Guilford, moved to Illinois and settled near what is now Mendon in Adams County. Chittenden was a deacon in the Congregational Church and in 1833, in his new home in Illinois, the first Congregational Church in the state was organized. In 1834, Chittenden laid out the village of Guilford, now Mendon.

Adam Stanton House (1789)

Adam Stanton moved from Rhode Island to Clinton during the Revolutionary War and operated a general store and salt distillery on his property. This land had earlier been the site of Reverend Abraham Pierson‘s house, built in 1694. It was there, from 1701 to 1707, that Rev. Pierson taught the first classes of the Collegiate School, which was later moved to Saybrook and then to New Haven, where it eventually became Yale University. Adam Stanton took down the Pierson House when he built his own house on the site in 1789-1791, using parts of the earlier structure in the construction of the new one. Today, the Stanton House is a museum of American antiques with almost all of the furnishings being original to the house.

James Plumb House (1804)

The house traditionally known as the Jacob Pledger House, at the northeast corner of Westfield and East Streets in Middletown, was actually built by a prosperous farmer, named James Plumb, in 1804. The attached kitchen wing may have been Plumb’s original dwelling (built in 1740), before he built his early Federal-style mansion house. The house remained in the Plumb and Barry families until 1888 and is still a private residence.

Bishop Abraham Jarvis House (1799)

The 1799 home of Bishop Abraham Jarvis is considered to be Cheshire’s best example of Federal-style architecture. Abraham Jarvis was consecrated second bishop of Connecticut in 1797, succeeding Samuel Seabury, and two years later he moved from Middletown to Cheshire. In 1803, he moved to New Haven, where he died in 1813, and his remains are interred under the high altar at Trinity Episcopal Church. Jarvis was one of the trustees of the new Episcopal Academy (now Cheshire Academy), where his son attended school. The house passed through other owners and in recent years was in an endangered condition, but it has since been restored.

Captain John Clark House (1802)

Built around 1802 as an addition or replacement for an earlier home on the site, the house of Captain John Clark, on South Canterbury Road in Canterbury is, like the Prudence Crandall House, a prime example of the “Canterbury Style,” a regional development of the Georgian and Federal styles. Both of these houses are believed to have been designed by the same builder: Thomas Gibbs of Plainfield.

Prudence Crandall House (1805)

What is today known as the Prudence Crandall House, in Canterbury, was originally built around 1805 for Luther Paine by the architect, Thomas Gibbs. The house, also known as the Elisha Payne House, was built in the “Canterbury type” of the Federal style, so named because there are several similar houses in town. Distinctive features of the Canterbury Style include having a gable atop a hipped roof with twin chimneys and a complex two-and-a-half story entrance composition with a triangular pediment above a Gothic-influenced Palladian window above an elaborate doorway. In 1831, the house became a school for girls, run by Prudence Crandall of Rhode Island, who had been invited by Canterbury residents to head the school. When Crandall accepted Sarah Harris, the daughter of a free African American farmer, to the school, many townspeople objected and began to remove their daughters from the school. In response, Crandall decided attract students from free black communities in New England to her school, who could be trained as teachers. In 1833, the state passed a “Black Law” making it illegal for the school to operate. Crandall was arrested, spent a night in jail, and faced various charges until her case was dismissed in 1834. A dissatisfied mob then attacked the school, which was forced to close. Crandall soon married and left Connecticut. The “Black Law” was repealed in 1838 and years later, in 1886 the Connecticut legislature honored Crandall with an annual pension. She was designated the official state heroine of Connecticut in 1995 and her former house and school is now the Prudence Crandall Museum, operated by the state.