The 1840 house, built by Henry Smith for Ephraim Williams, Jr., on Water Street in Stonington Borough, combines features of the Federal and Greek Revival styles. Ephraim Williams, Jr.’s father and uncle, Charles P. Williams, were both successful and wealthy businessmen.
The John Johnson House, a large Greek Revival home, was built around 1840 on Broadway in Norwich. Johnson’s father was a president of the Norwich Bank. Later residents included a Dr. Linnell and Henry E. Bourne, who taught history and psychology at the Norwich Academy from 1889 to 1892. Later, Bourne joined his brother and former roommate at Yale, Edward Gaylord Bourne, as a professor of history at Western Reserve University. Henry Eldridge Bourne wrote articles and books, including A History of Mediæval and Modern Europe, The Teaching of History and Civics in the Elementary and the Secondary School, A History of the United States and The Revolutionary Period in Europe. The house, which originally had a center-hall plan, was later subdivided into five apartments.
Built around 1830, in the Greek Revival style with some elements of the earlier Federal style, the Ripley-Woodhull House is an imposing residence on Broadway in Norwich. The house was originally occupied by William D. Ripley, a merchant and banker, who may have shared it with the Woodhull family, who owned it later on.
What is now the Bradley Barnes Museum, on Main Street in Southington, began as a Greek Revival style hose, built in 1836 for Amon Bradley, the same year he married Sylvia Barnes. Bradley, who had been a Yankee peddler in the south in his youth, invested in real estate and served as postmaster and in the Connecticut General Assembly. The Barnes Homestead remained in the family for three generations and had many additions and expansions, including the c. 1860 attic windows and the c. 1900 Colonial Revival porch. Bradley Henry Barnes, Amon’s grandson, was a successful manufacturer and financier. In 1973, he bequeathed the house and its contents to the town of Southington to be a museum. Numerous antiques were collected by the Barnes family over the years and are on display in the Bradley Barnes Museum, which is located not far from the Southington Green.
Constructed on Main Street in Cromwell in 1834, when it was still part of Middletown, the Upper Middletown Academy served as a private and a public school from 1834 to 1902. It was originally built as an extension of the Ecclesiastical Society, being right across the street from the old Congregational Church. In 1938, the Academy was acquired by the Belden Library Association (which later moved to a new location on West Street). The Greek Revival building, now used as offices, originally had a bell tower which was later removed.
The Daniel Chadwick House, on Lyme Street in Old Lyme, was built in 1830 in the Greek Revival style and includes a widow’s or captain’s walk. It was the home of a notable sea captain involved in trade with London. He died tragically by taking his own life in 1855. Chadwick‘s son, also named Daniel Chadwick, was a notable lawyer. The bays and porches on either side of the house are later additions. The house is also currently for sale.
The oldest Masonic Temple in continuous use in Connecticut is the Temple of King Solomon’s Lodge No. 7 (originally chartered in 1765), built high on a rocky cliff on Main Street in Woodbury. The front section of the Temple was built in 1838 on land sold to the Lodge by Ashbel Moody. Construction materials had to be hauled from the street over the face of the rock because Moody’s son-in-law, Levi Douglas, an anti-Mason, would not allow transportation across his family’s land, although he later sold an additional 2 foot strip of land when the building was expanded. A set of stairs from the street (no longer in use) were constructed in 1839. The Temple was enlarged in 1866, with further additions in the twentieth century.
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