Located at 159 East Main Street in Branford, the Greek Revival-style William I. Palmer House was built c. 1843.
William I. Palmer House (1843)
Dr. Baldwin House (1795)
According to the National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination for the South Britain Historic District, the house at 712 South Britain Road in South Britain in Southbury was built c. 1795 and was the home of Dr. Baldwin, South Britain’s first physician. A more recent brochure for the South Britain Historic District, however, lists the Wheeler House at 715 South Britain Road as the home of South Britain’s first physician, Dr. Wheeler. The NRHP Inventory Nomination’s description of No. 715 lists it as the S. Johnson & Miss N. Mitchell House and does not mention Dr. Wheeler. The Nomination further relates that, early in the nineteenth century, No. 712 served as “Miss Pierce’s Academy for Fashionable Young Ladies,” which later moved to Litchfield, although other sources state Sarah Pierce‘s Academy was founded in her Litchfield home in 1792.
Capt. Daniel Ranney House (1750)
The house at 380-382 Main Street in Cromwell was originally a center-chimney residence. Built between 1744 and 1758, probably by Israel Wilcox, it was sold by Charles Wilcox to Capt. Daniel Ranney in 1757. Capt. Ranney, who had become wealthy in the West Indies trade, died the following year and the house eventually was passed on to his grandson, Capt. James Butler and then was owned (1831) by Stillman K. Wightman, a lawyer who had married Butler’s daughter Clarissa. After his son Edward K. Wightman was killed in 1865 in the Civil War, Stillman K. Wightman made a long journey through a war-torn countryside to recover his son’s body in North Carolina. Greek Revival additions were made to the house around 1830. The property remained in the family until 1912. Colonial Revival alterations were made around 1920. The house, also called the William Ranney House, is haunted and was featured in an episode of the TV series “A Haunting.”
Congregational Parsonage, Watertown (1836)
The house at 36 North Street in Watertown was built in 1836 as the Parsonage (minister’s house) for the First Congregational Church of Watertown. It served as a Parsonage from 1836 to 1953. In the latter year, Agnes DeForest Curtiss Buckingham, widow of Charles Benedict Buckingham, decided that the Trumbull House, where she lived next to the Congregational Church, was too large for her as an elderly woman living alone. “Granny B”, as her family called her, arranged with the church to swap properties, exchanging the Trumbull House for the Parsonage, where she then lived until her death in 1979. Before moving in, she added the pillared stone porch to the the side of the house.
Nehemiah Beardsley House (1840)
The brick house at 581 Main Street in Somers was built sometime before 1840. It was first home to Oren Clark and his sons, Ebenezer and Jonathan. The Clarks ran a store next to the house. After 1844, it was the home of Nehemiah Beach Beardsley, who was born January 20, 1780 in Stratford and died February 28 1868 in Somers. In 1805 he married Achsah Morgan (1774-1868), widow of Samuel Dwight Chapin.
Franklin Smith House (1840)
The building at 138 Bank Street in New London was erected in 1840 as residence and has since been significantly remodeled for retail businesses. The Greek Revival-style house was built by Franklin Smith, a whaling captain. As related by Frances Manwaring Caulkins in the History of New London (1860), Capt. Franklin Smith
made the most successful series of voyages, to be found in the whaling annals of the port, and probably of the world! In seven voyages to the South Atlantic, in the employ of N. and W. W. Billings, and accomplished in seven successive years, from 1831 to 1837, inclusive—one in the Flora, one in the Julius Cesar, and five in the Tuscarora-—-he brought home 16,154 barrels of whale, 1,147 of sperm. This may be regarded as a brilliant exhibition of combined good fortune and skill. Two subsequent voyages made by him in the Chelsea, were also crowned with signal success. These nine voyages were accomplished between June, 1830, and August, 1841.
Capt. Smith was accompanied by his wife on four four of his voyages and his only daughter was named Chelsea after the ship on which she was born while at sea. In 1842 Smith became a partner in the whaling firm of Perkins & Smith.
Carpet Mill Tenement (1840)
At 40 Prospect Street in Thompsonville in Enfield is a Greek Revival tenement building built c. 1840. It is one of many tenements in various styles in the neighborhood that were constructed for workers at the Hartford Carpet Company mills between the 1840s and 1920s. Here’s another of 40 Prospect Street:
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