Folk Victorian

The Joseph Smith House, at 100 Ellsworth Street in Black Rock, Bridgeport, represents the transition from the Queen Anne style of architecture to the Colonial Revival style (note the Palladian window in the gable). The house was built in 1904 for Joseph Smith. Born in North Haven in 1851, he brought to Bridgeport by his parents in 1853. According to the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Vol. II (1917):

[He] was educated in the schools of Bridgeport and in Bryant & Stratton’s Business College. He made his initial step in the business world as a bookkeeper for the Wheeler & Howes Coal Company and later was with the Howes Sewing Machine Company for a short time. He afterward engaged in business with his brother Orland on Water street, selling fish, fruit and vegetables to the wholesale and retail trades. They built up the largest enterprise of the kind in the city at that time and the partnership was continued for a year or two, at the end of which period Joseph Smith purchased the interest of his brother Fairfield and entered into partnership with his brother Jeremiah in general merchandising at the dock in the Black Rock district, selling to crafts and boats. He continued in that line for some time and afterward spent two years with the David Trubee Butter Company, while subsequently he engaged in the butter business on his own account on Water street, where he conducted a wholesale store. He next turned his attention to the sale of wagons, having his establishment where the postoffice is located on John street. He there bought and sold wagons, building up a business of extensive proportions. At length he sold his place on the postoffice site to Gates & Omans and entered their employ in a place on the corner of Broad and John streets, where he continued for a number of years. He then opened business for himself in a carriage repository on John street, where he built up an extensive business in that line. At length he turned his attention to real estate dealing and not only bought and sold much property but also erected a number of residences and remodeled others, converting them into modern habitable dwellings.

Smith converted a number of earlier buildings in Black Rock into residences, including a former barn [no longer extant] on the Hackley Estate (which served as the Auxiliary Black Rock School, 1893-1905), which he moved to Hackley Street, the original Village Shop, the Hamilton House and the W.L. Burr Homestead, among others. The History of Black Rock (1955), compiled by Dr. Ivan O. Justinius, describes the Isaac W. Jones House, at 227 Ellsworth Street, as later becoming the Smith House and being passed to Smith’s daughter, Mrs. J. E. Hurlburt (her first name was Viola). 100 Ellsworth Street is also listed as the residence of Mrs. J. E. Hurlburt in a source from 1929.