The house at 117 Barbourtown Road in Canton was erected in 1775 by Reuben Barber (1751-1825), who served in the Revolutionary War. Barber donated the land for the Canton Center Cemetery, across the road from his house, and was the first person to be buried there. Reuben‘s son, Sadosa Barber, lived in the basement while his house nearby was being built. He quarried the stone to build the stairway outside. In 1820, Loin Humphrey remodeled and repaired the house for his son, Lorin Harmon Humphrey.
The house at 50 Chaplin Street in Chaplin was built c. 1844-1846. For many years it was the home of Jared W. Lincoln, who ran the adjacent general store and was a leading citizen of Chaplin, holding a number of public offices. In 1871, Lincoln moved to another house (35 Chaplin Street) and sold the house at 50 Chaplin Street to his son, Edgar, who would also eventually take over the store from his father.
As described in Vol. I of A Modern History of Windham County, Connecticut (1920), edited by Edgar’s cousin, Allen B. Lincoln:
Edgar S. Lincoln, continued to reside in Chaplin and was honored in manners similar to the father, chosen judge of probate, to the General Assembly and to various local offices. Later, he removed to Waterbury, retiring from active business, but assisting his son-in-law, Attorney Ulysses G. Church, and was also chosen clerk of the Second Congregational Church, where the Rev. C. A. Dinsmore was pastor. He died in Waterbury September 1, 1919, and was buried in Chaplin, the Rev. C. A. Dinsmore ofliciating at the service.
The two-family residence at 52-54 Hubbard Street in Glastonbury was built in 1820 as a one-room schoolhouse. It was used as the town’s District School No. 3, called the Green School because it served students from the area of Hubbard Green. It became a private residence in 1934. When it was used as a school, there was a small bell-tower on the west (left) end, where there were also two doors next to each other instead of the current two doors at opposite ends.
Charles Mallory (1796-1882) was born in Waterford and learned sail making in New London as an apprentice to his brother-in-law, Nathan Beebe. In 1816 Mallory came to Mystic, where he soon set up his own sail loft. In 1836 he retired from sail making to focus on his fishing, whaling and shipping interests. His descendants would continue as an important shipping and shipbuilding family. Mallory had a sail making loft on the third floor of a building on Holmes Street in Mystic that he constructed circa 1830. All three floors were used for a variety of purposes over the years. In 1951 the building was brought upriver by barge to its current location at Mystic Seaport. The top floor has a sail loft exhibit, the middle floor has a ship rigging loft exhibit and the bottom floor has a ship chandlery exhibit. (more…)
In 1907-1908, Oxford Congregational Church acquired the house at 6 Academy Road, at the southeast corner of Oxford Road and Academy Road in Oxford, to serve as its parsonage. The front section of the house dates to c. 1800, but the rear section, which has a saltbox roof, is possibly much older. Before becoming a parsonage, the house was the residence of Dr. Lewis Barnes (1824-1907), who was a physician in Oxford from 1856 until his death. (more…)
The building at 171 East Plymouth Road in East Plymouth was built c. 1840-1860 as a house and store by merchant Orrin Preston. The store, which also used space in the back of the old Scoville House next door at 175 East Plymouth Road, was in operation through the end of the nineteenth century.
The old Town Hall of Woodbury, located at 5 Mountain Road, was erected in 1845-1846. Before its construction, another building had been used as Town Hall for over twenty years, as described by William Cothren in Vol. I of the History of Ancient Woodbury (1854):
Previous to 1823, there had been an effort to locate and build a new town hall for the use of the town, but as is usual in such cases, a great deal of bickering and bad feeling had arisen on the occasion, and no conclusion was arrived at. Finally, to end the difficulty, Mr. Daniel Bacon built a new two story building, near his dwelling-house, now owned by his son, Rev. William T. Bacon, and offered the use of the second story, rent free, to the town for its meetings.
[. . . .]This continued to be used as the place for all meetings of the town till 1845, when the present commodious town-hall was built.
At that date, it was thought that the old town-hall did not answer the necessities of the town, and that a new and more commodious building should be erected. In the conclusion that a new building should be erected, all agreed; but the location was quite another matter. In this the “ends” of the town were widely at variance.
[. . . .]A meeting was called in the “dead of winter,” to determine the question of location, and after a spirited debate, a respectable majority voted to locate the building in the spot it now occupies. But there being a suspicion of unfairness in the vote, application was made to the selectmen to appoint another meeting to try the question anew. The meeting was called, and though Providence, the evening before the appointed day, shed down some two feet of snow, enough one would think, to cool the feelings of the belligerent parties, yet the high piled drifts were penetrated in every direction, and almost every legal voter appeared at the meeting for the decision of the momentous question of a difference in distance of one or two hundred rods! The vote was taken by ballot, and the former location ratified by an increased majority.
In 1895, the Library Association moved into a room on the second floor, which it occupied until relocating to the former Parker Academy in 1902. A stage was added to the Town Hall in 1923 and the center section of the second floor was removed to create balconies on either side. Many events in town have been held in the building over the years, including performances by the Community Theatre at Woodbury. The structure was renovated in 2009.
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