Second Ransford Button House (1841)

By 1841, Ransford Button, a merchant originally from New York State, owned two houses on Hebron Road in Andover, built in 1823 and 1841 respectively. In the 1850 census he listed himself as a merchant with $1000 in real estate. He also served as village postmaster. At the time, he was living with a wife, three children, and his mother-in-law in his second house, located at 27 Hebron Road, which he built in the Greek Revival style in 1841. He may have used the earlier house as his store. By the 1860 census he had become depot master.

Hezekiah Nichols House (1810)

Interestingly, the house at 1810 Huntington Turnpike in Trumbull was built in 1810. A sign on the house indicates it was the home of Hezekiah Nichols. The Nichols family gave their name to the village where the house is located. The name on the sign may refer to the Hezekiah Nichols (1781-1835) who is mentioned in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1899):

Hezekiah Nichols of Nichols, a son of Andrew Nichols, Esq., succeeded to the homestead and a goodly portion of the estate of Nichols. He was related to the Rev. James Nichols, the last Episcopal clergyman who went to Scotland for ordination, and to the first ordained in America — Rev. Philo Shelton.

His first wife, Prudence Polly Shelton, was his cousin and a cousin of Rev. Shelton. As related in Part II of Rev. Samuel Orcutt’s A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886):

Hezekiah Nichols became a member of the Congregational Church of Trumbull, but his second wife, Avis Peet, retained for many years her fondness for the Episcopal Church, in which she was born and reared, and the Rev. Mr. Rutledge, rector of Christ Church, Stratford, held mission services in the “north and south rooms” of Hezekiah Nichols’ house at Nichols’ Farms, which aided in preparing the way for the present Trinity parish of that place.

[. . . .] At the time of Mr. Nichols’ death his estate, in addition to tracts of land in Stratford and Huntington, extended from Huntington turnpike to Bear swamp road, a distance of nearly a mile. The greater portion of his lands at Nichols’ Farms is now in possession of his eldest son, William Grandison Nichols.

Wallingford Grange Hall (1933)

In 1885, William Ellsworth Hall, a pioneering orchard-owner in Wallingford, together with thirty-one others, established Wallingford Grange No. 33. Hall was called “The Father of the Wallingford Grange” in a letter of sympathy from the Grange to his family after his death in 1920. Wallingford’s Grange Hall was built at 586 Center Street in 1933 and is still used for Grange meetings twice a month.

D. W. Huntington House (1830)

The house at 234 Armstrong Road in Coventry, dramatically situated on a hillside, was built c. 1830. Originally the Stanley family farmhouse, the house was later the home of D. W. Huntington, who owned a silk mill along the nearby Mill Brook in the 1860s-1880s. Originally from Montville, Huntington had moved to Coventry in his youth. He had been overseer of a cotton mill and studied civil engineering. In 1874, Huntington and William A. Hempstead patented an improvement in water-meters.

Ira Smith House (1791)

Ira Smith of Prospect was born in 1757 at his family homestead on Cheshire Road in Prospect. He served fifteen months in the Revolutionary War, going in place of his father, who was drafted in 1777. Ira was a private in Capt. Jesse Kimball’s company of Col. John Chandler’s 8th Connecticut Regiment. He was at Peekskill, at Germantown, detached for the defense of Fort Mifflin, and at Valley Forge. Smith later applied for a pension, giving a deatailed account of his service. After returning home, Ira Smith built the house at 61 Cheshire Road in Prospect sometime between 1779, when he married Elizabeth Judson, and 1791, when his father, Ephriam Smith, gave him 35 acres of the family farm. Ira and Ephriam were among the founders of Prospect’s Congregational Church. Ira died in 1835 and his son, John Andrew Smith, lived in the home until he died in 1878. It was then purchased by the Plumb family, who today operate Plumb Farm Flowers.

Pierpont Store (1845)

The building at 31 State Street in North Haven was built c. 1845 by Rufus Pierpont (1818-1855), adjacent to the 1795 Pierpont Homsetead, to serve as a general store. His son, Joseph Pierpont, continued the business, was operated by the family until 1942, when it closed during World War II due to a lack of help. A Greek Revival building, it was enlarged and remodeled in the Italianate style with a storefront on the west side and a side porch and projecting bay on the south side. These alterations were the work of Solomon Linsley, a Civil War veteran and local builder in North Haven.