The one-room schoolhouse at 72 Plumtrees Road in Bethel was built in 1867 on land donated by Eliza Benedict (1820-1899). It served the Plumtrees District, one of the town’s five school districts at the time. The building was enlarged and a cupola and bell were added in 1881. The school was closed for renovations in 1957 and for the first time electricity and indoor plumbing were installed. The building reopened in 1962 as an elementary school and remained open until 1970. It was then used by the Visiting Nurse Association as a children’s health care clinic. A commission to preserve the school was formed in 2006. Today, the building is owned by the town of Bethel and the Plumtrees School Association has a historical easement to maintain it as an educational museum.
The house at 103 Olmsted Street in East Hartford is one of several houses on the street with the same basic design, each differentiated by different choices for the decorative trim. The house was built circa 1893 for Julius M. Wolcott (possibly this one?), a farmer. However, he very soon sold the house to William Roberts.
The building at 686 Main Street in Winsted was built in 1846 as a country store by Samuel Coe. At the time, the Beardsley House, a hotel and commercial block that burned down in 1939, was located just across the turnpike. Coe had previously been in partnership with Luman Hubbell, who is described in the History of the Hubbell Family (1881), by Walter Hubbell:
LUMAN HUBBELL, of Winsted (in Winchester), Litchfield County, Connecticut, son of Silliman Hubbell and Hannah Taylor, was born in Danbury, Connecticut, August 28th, 1797.
His parents moved to Winchester in 1800, and at the age of fourteen years he was apprenticed to Earl P. Pease, a woollen manufacturer of Norfolk, Connecticut, and took up the branch of “blue dyeing,” in which he became so proficient that he received one thousand dollars per year for his services, “a large salary in those days.”
He resided in Massachusetts for several years, and returned to Winsted in 1828, where he became a permanent resident.
In 1831 he formed a partnership with Mr. Coe, under the firm name of Coe & Hubbell. A large business was established by this house, and in 1846 they erected a new-store, and were preparing to move into it when Mr. Hubbell was attacked by a sudden illness, from which he died October 8th, 1846.
The Coe Store remained in the family for several decades, being operated for a time by James W. Coe. The building was vacant in 1887. Around that time, the originally Greek Revival structure was altered, the roofline being lowered to its present shallower pitch. Since then it has housed a variety of businesses. The current storefronts date to the twentieth century.
The house at 55 Old Post Road in Tolland was built c. 1760-1790. A fire later destroyed the roof and part of the second floor, but the house was rebuilt. This seems to be the house described as follows in the History of Tolland County, Connecticut (1888), by J.R. Cole:
Next south was the old Ashbel Steel place, which was used for a school house. Mr. Lucius S. Fuller taught there both before and after the building was moved. Doctor Potwine lived in this house. Joshua Griggs now owns it.
The Masons established Uriel Lodge No. 24 in Tolland in 1793. Now located in Merrow (in Mansfield), the lodge once occupied the front of the house’s second story.
Henry G. Beaumont (1829-1904) built the house at 26 Wells Avenue in East Hartford circa 1887 as a speculation and most likely rented the property until 1901. In that year, the house was acquired by Kate Harrison, wife of Charles Harrison (died 1911), who worked as a railroad yard clerk.
