Built in 1834-1835 for Dr. Jonathan Cogswell on Main Street in East Windsor Hill (now part of South Windsor). Cogswell became a professor at the Theological Institute of Connecticut in 1834. This school first opened its doors in that year and was located just across the street from the Cogswell’s Greek Revival house. In 1844, he sold the house to the Institute and it was used as a residence for its president and first professor of theology, Bennett Tyler. The Institute moved to Hartford in 1865 and is now known as the Hartford Theological Seminary. Cogswell’s daughter Elizabeth married James Dixon of Enfield, who later served as a notable anti-slavery senator. In Washington, the Dixons were personal friends of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth spent the night of the President’s assassination with the first lady to comfort her. The house is currently for sale.
Ellery Hills House (1840)
Built around 1840 for Ellery Hills, a manufacturer of shoes, this Greek Revival house, with an unusual elliptical portico, is a reminder of a time when many other such houses lined Main Street in Hartford in the mid-nineteenth century. Architectural details used on the facade of this house are featured in Chester Hills‘s Builder’s Guide, published in Hartford in 1834.