The Parish House of Christ Episcopal Church in Roxbury was built around 1835 as the Old Center Schoolhouse. Roxbury Center School closed in 1942 and the building was sold to Christ Church. An addition was constructed in 1958 and the Parish House (located at 4 Wellers Bridge Road) was thoroughly renovated in the 1990s.
According to Homes of Old Woodbury (1959), p. 240, the house at 148 Good Hill Road was built in the early nineteenth century by Hunting Beardslee (d. 1825) [other sources give the name as Huntington Beardsley (d. 1823)] and passed to his son, Charles T. Beardslee. The house has also been dated to 1835. In the 1940s the house was owned by the Surrealist artist, David Hare (1917-1992).
The Greek Revival house at 43 Liberty Street in Chester was built c. 1820-1830 for Charles Daniels (1799-1838). Ithiel Town has traditionally been attributed as the architect, but this has not been historically verified. It is however architecturally similar to other works by Town. The house was originally erected near Daniels’ gimlet factory, built about 1825 on Deep Hollow Brook. After his death the house passed to his widow (his second wife, Abby L. Gilbert, who died in 1905) and her second husband, Clark N. Smith, who died in 1911. The building was acquired by a neighboring factory, M. S. Brooks & Sons, which eventually started using it as a warehouse. New owners acquired the house in 1977 and in June 1978 it was moved 300 feet to the west, away from the factory. The house was then carefully restored as a residence. (more…)
William Barton founded East Hampton’s famous bell manufacturing industry in 1808. Bell making was passed to his son Hiram and then to his grandson William E. Barton (c. 1830-1895), who manufactured sleigh bells. William E. Barton initially made bells at his father’s foundry, but after a fire in 1874 he moved to a nearby foundry built by the Union Bell Company. His company was sold and reorganized in 1881 as the Barton Bell Company. He married Harriet Watrous in 1853 and their son Abner Watrous Barton was part owner of the Barton Bell Company. William E. Barton patented several innovative designs for sleigh bells and bell straps. His originality is also reflected in the distinctive design of his house, built in 1855 and located at 30 Skinner Street in East Hampton. The house was acquired by N.N. Hill in 1892 and was owned by the N.N. Hill Brass Company until 1950.
A number of mariners named Captain Charles Williams lived in Old Saybrook over the years. One of them (perhaps the Capt. Charles Williams who died on his birthday at the age of 75 on June 4, 1883?) built the Greek Revival House at 48 Cromwell Place on Saybrook Point in Old Saybrook in 1842.
Built c. 1799 by master Ebenezer Learned, master carpenter, the house at 157 Broadway in Norwich was probably originally a Federal style building. In May 1812 the property was deeded to B. M. Ballou and in 1861 it was bought by Connecticut Governor William Alfred Buckingham for his daughter, Eliza Coit Buckingham, and son-in-law, General William Appleton Aiken (1833-1929). That same year, in late April, Gen. Aiken was dispatched by Gov. Buckingham on a mission to Washington, D. C. to assure President Lincoln of Connecticut’s support in the Civil War.
In 1867 Aiken mortgaged the house the enlarge it and remodel it in the Greek Revival style with a columned portico. He made further alterations in 1880 and 1890. It remained in the Aiken family until 1940 when Aiken’s daughter Mary sold it. In 1950 the house was bought by architect John E. McGuire who in 1957 partitioned the interior to rent out half the house as apartments.
Much altered over the years, the house at 65 Fair Street in Guilford was built in 1849 by Richard Cruttenden. He was descended from Abraham Cruttenden, one of the original settlers of Guilford.
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