Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Federal Style

Asahel Nettleton House (1810)

In 1810, cigar-maker Nathaniel Rockwell, Jr. built a center-chimney house on Main Street in East Windsor Hill. Later facing debt, he sold the house in 1835 to Asahel Nettleton, who updated the house in the Greek Revival style. Nettleton, a minister and evangelist was a prominent figure of the Second Great Awakening. He participated in the New Lebanon Conference of 1827, where he and fellow Yale-graduate Lyman Beecher opposed the teachings of Charles Finney. In East Windsor Hill, he helped to found the Theological Institute of Connecticut and contributed proceeds from his volume of Village Hymns for Social Worship to help endow a professorship. Nettleton died in 1844, having willed his estate to the seminary, which later moved to Hartford. Nettleton’s colleague and East Windsor Hill neighbor, seminary professor and president Bennett Tyler, compiled a collection of Nettleton’s works and wrote a Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Asahel Nettleton, D.D.

Built in 1828, the Elisha Wadsworth House served as an inn for travelers on the Albany Turnpike until 1862. Originally facing north on the Turnpike (now Albany Avenue), it was rotated 90 degrees to face west, on Prospect Avenue, in 1918. Update: After years of neglect (during which original woodwork was destroyed after a water-pipe burst), the house was thoroughly renovated in 2013.

Timothy Pitkin House (1788)

Rev. Timothy Pitkin, the son of Governor William Pitkin, was the minister of Farmington’s Congregational Church from 1752 to 1785. During the Revolutionary War, he preached a sermon attended by George Washington. In 1803, he sold his 1788 house on Colton Street in Farmington to his son, Timothy Pitkin, Jr. The younger Pitkin, born in 1766, was a Yale graduate who then studied law with Oliver Wolcott. He went on to become a lawyer in Farmington and entered politics as a Federalist, serving in the Connecticut State Legislature and the US Congress. Pitkin, who died in 1847, was also an important early historian of the United States, writing A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States of America (1816) and the A Political and Civil History of the United States from 1763 to the Close of Washington’s Administration (1828). The house was sold in 1841 to Dr. Edwin Carrington, who died in 1852 and for whom the adjacent Carrington Lane is named. The house combines elements of the Georgian and Federal styles.

Rocky Hill Congregational Church (1808)

The Rocky Hill Congregational Church was constructed on Old Main Street, in Rocky Hill, in 1808. The congregation had been organized in 1727, when the town was still part of Wethersfield. This notable Federal-style church was extensively documented for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1938.

Union Hotel, now Miss Porter’s School "Main" (1830)

The Union Hotel was built in 1830 on Main Street in Farmington to serve those who were expected to utilize the nearby Farmington Canal. Two years after the canal failed in 1848, the vacant building was rented by Sarah Porter for her new school for girls. It continues as the “Main” building of Miss Porter’s School. (more…)

The Bissell Tavern (1796)

The 1796 Bissell Tavern, also known as Bissell’s Stage House or the Ebeneezer Fitch Bissell House, is located on Palisado Avenue in Windsor. The Bissell family also ran the ferry nearby across the Connecticut River to East Windsor Hill. The Bissell Tavern Sign is owned by the Windsor Historical Society.

Academy Hall (1803)

Rocky Hill’s Academy Hall was built in 1803 as a navigation school for sailors at time when the town was still an active port and students might hope to become sea captains in the future. Construction was funded by public and private contributions, but the builder, Abraham Jaggers, still ended up bankrupt! It later served as a primary school until 1940. Damaged by fire in 1839, the interior was rebuilt. The building has also been altered in other ways, including the removal of the two original end chimneys. Currently owned by the town, the Academy Hall is currently leased to the Rocky Hill Historical Society and serves as a museum and historical library.