Epaphroditus Champion House (1794)

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Epaphroditus Champion was the son of Col. Henry Champion, the primary purchasing agent for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Father and son drove a heard of 300 cattle to feed the Washington’s soldiers at Valley forge in 1778. After the War, Epaphroditus Champion, who was a merchant, later settled in East Haddam and served as a U.S. Congressman from 1807 to 1817. The house he built in East Haddam, on a bluff which provides a view of the Connecticut River, is also known as The Terraces. Champion was the cousin and brother-in-law of the merchant Julius Deming of Litchfield. He hired William Sprats, the architect of Deming’s home, to recreate a similar house for himself in East Haddam. In 1940, the Champion House was purchased by the artist, Northam Robinson Gould, who restored it. According to John Warner Barber, in his Connecticut Historical Collections (1836), the house “is distinguished for its bold and lofty terraces, and is a striking object to travellers passing on the river.”

Ira Shailer House (1791)

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UPDATE: This house was destroyed in a fire on June 7, 2023.

Ira Shailer, a descendant of Thomas Shailer, one of the original settlers of Haddam, built his house on Syabrook Road in the Shailerville district of Haddam. It was built in the 1790s, sometime after Shailer married his cousin, Anna Shailer, around 1790. Members of the Baptist Shailer family kept to themselves in their own settlement of Shailerville, often marrying cousins and avoiding outsiders.

First Church of Christ, Congregational, East Haddam (1794)

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East Haddam‘s first Ecclesiastical Society began in 1704 and the first meetinghouse took five years to build. The first minister was Rev. Stephen Hosmer. A second meeting house replaced the first in 1728 and the third and current church was built in 1794. It was designed by Lavius Fillmore, an architect who later designed the Congregational churches in two Vermont towns, Bennington (1805) and Middlebury (1809), the latter being considered his masterpiece. The Federal-style East Haddam church has an elaborate interior with Doric columns and Roman arches. It was also built with a domed ceiling which provides excellent acoustics.

First Congregational Church of Cheshire (1826)

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Cheshire became a seperate parish from Wallingford in 1724. The first meetinghouse was a log cabin on the corner of what is now Lanyon Drive and South Main Street. This was replaced by the second meetinghouse in 1737, on the east side of Cheshire Green (where a Civil War monument stands today). This church was taken down in 1826-1827 and parts were used in the construction of the current church, designed by David Hoadley. The church has a similar design to those of the Congregational churches in Litchfield (1829) and Southington (1830).

The Russell Cooke House (1801)

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The Russell Cooke House, on South Main Street in Cheshire, was built in 1801 and was originally both a residence and shop. When the builder, Russell Cooke, left for Ohio in 1805, others ran the shop, which was converted into a tavern in 1850 by William Horton. Later still, it was a hotel and a school. Today it is used as a law office. The gambrel-roofed building has a traditional colonial form, but with applied Federal-style details.

The Abijah Beach Tavern (1814)

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Different sources indicate two different dates for the construction of the Abijah Beach Tavern in Cheshire: 1750 and 1814. The Federal style of the building is consistent with the latter date. The Beach Tavern, located just south of the Cheshire Green, was at the center of town life in the early nineteenth century: in addition to serving as an tavern, inn and store, it was also used for town meetings and court sessions before a town hall was built in 1867. The top floor of the Beach Tavern has a large ballroom. The Tavern is named for its first owner, Abijah Beach, who died in 1821. For a time it was known as the Benjamin Franklin Inn and became a private residence in 1852.