Dr. Orrin Hunt House (1840)

163 Hebron Rd., Bolton CT

At 163 Hebron Road in Bolton is a Greek Revival house built c. 1840. On the property is also a building that served as Bolton’s South School House until 1949. The house was built for Dr. Orrin Hunt, who is described in Genealogy of the Name and Family of Hunt (1863):

Dr. Orrin Hunt was a native of Lebanon, Conn. He was born in that part which is now the town of Columbia. He read medicine with Dr. Fuller of that place, who sustained a high reputation in his profession; and was subsequently connected with the State Institution, the Retreat for the Insane, at Hartford. Dr. Hunt enjoyed the full confidence of his distinguished teacher. Dr. Hunt located in Bolton, and was successful in medical practice, and esteemed as a citizen. He afterwards removed to Glastenbury, and there also enjoyed the reputation of a skilful [sic] and faithful doctor. He continued to be much employed in Bolton; and, after a few years, returned to that place. Dr. Hunt was taught, by affliction in his family and by protracted suffering in his own person, to mingle sympathy with his prescriptions for others; an his visits were thus rendered peculiarly welcome and soothing. An acquaintance of nearly forty years enables the writer to speak of the estimation in which he was held by his patients. They looked upon him as a friend; and the medicines administered were the more effective and beneficial from the confidence he inspired, and the fellow-feeling and kindness manifested. His Christian influence was much valued, and his death deplored as a great loss

Richard Gay House (1855)

22 Main St., Farmington

Some would date the house at 22 Main Street in Farmington to c. 1855 based on stylistic considerations (it combines Greek Revival and Italianate characteristics). The house, however, does not appear on an 1869 map of Farmington, so it has also been dated to c. 1870. It was built by William Gay, who operated a store in Farmington. In 1875 William Gay sold the property to his son Richard H. Gay. According to American Biography: A New Cyclopedia, Volume 12 (1922):

Richard Holmes Gay, the oldest son of William Gay, was born April 7, 1832, and died March 30, 1903. He married, September 25, 1856, Gertrude Rivington Palmer, who was born in Whitehall, New York, September 25, 1835, daughter of Hunloke and Mary (Rivington) Palmer. Their children were: Mary Rivington, Margaret Palmer, Anna Rivington, and Gertrude Holmes.

After Richard Gay’s widow Gertrude died in 1924 the house passed to their daughter Gertrude Gay Kimball. It has had numerous owners since then.

Elmore-Burnham House (1816)

78 Long Hill Road

Yesterday I featured the Harvey Elmore House in South Windsor. Across the street, at 78 Long Hill Road, is another Elmore family house. It was built by a member of the Elmore family as a one-story gambrel-roofed house sometime before 1816, when Sarah Elmore Burnham moved in. In the 1840s her son Timothy altered and enlarged the house, at the same time altering it in the Greek Revival style. The house remained in the family until 1973.

Harvey Elmore House (1843)

Harvey Elmore House

The Greek Revival house at 87 Long Hill Road in South Windsor was built in 1843 by Harvey Elmore, who first demolished an earlier house on the site. The Elmore family settled the Long Hill area in the early eighteenth century and built many houses along Long Hill Road. Harvey Elmore (1799-1873) farmed the land and was a member of the general assembly of Connecticut in 1842 and 1844 and captain of an independent rifle company attached to the Twenty-fifth Connecticut Militia from 1836 to 1838. He married Clarissa Burnham in 1830 and the couple had two children. Their son, Samuel Edward Elmore, became president of the Connecticut River Banking Company. Their daughter, Mary Janette Elmore (1831-1922), never married and lived in the house until her death at the age of ninety-one. After her death her reminiscences, written when she was eighty, were found in the house’s attic. They were published by the South Windsor Historical Society in 1976 under the title Long Hill, South Windsor, Connecticut. The house was sold out of the family after her death.