Yesterday I featured the Gurdon Perry House, located at 780 Harbor Road in Southport in Fairfield. Nearby at 712 Harbor Road is the home of Austin Perry, brother of Gurdon. Both men were members of a family of wealthy ship owners and merchants. Both houses were built around the same time, circa 1830, but the Austin Perry House had a Corinthian portico added in the 1840s. It is considered to be one of the finest porticos of its type on a house in the United States.
The Greek Revival house at 61 Main Street in Middletown was built in 1837 for John Cookson, who was pastor of the First Baptist Church from 1828 to 1839. The house originally stood on the east side of South Main Street, opposite the church, which is no longer standing (the current Baptist church was built further north on Main Street in 1842). The house was purchased by the city’s Redevelopment Agency in 1972 and in 1977 it was moved to its current address as part of the South End Restoration project. It is now used as offices, as are two other historic houses that were relocated as part of the project: the William Southmayd House and the Caleb Fuller House.
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Attention Readers: I will be at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center tonight at 5:00 PM discussing and signing copies of my book, Vanished Downtown Hartford. Please come to this Nook Farm Book Talk if you are in the area! The house at 85 Main Street in North Stonington was built in 1819 (according to the sign on the house) or circa 1790 (according to the nomination for North Stonington Village Historic District). It was the home of Gilbert Sisson, a cabinetmaker and merchant. Born in 1769, Sisson married Desire Main in 1791. One of their sons, Charles Grandison Sisson (1807-1874), became a contractor and railroad president in New Jersey. Another, Noyes Sisson (1798-1872), was a cabinet maker and farmer in North Stonington.
Born in Westfield, Massachusetts in 1780, by age twenty-one John Mather was a merchant running a store in Hartford. In 1806 he started a glass works in Manchester (then still a part of East Hartford). It was soon destroyed in a fire, but the following year Mather was back in business, producing a variety of glass bottles. A hurricane in 1821 destroyed his glass factory and there is no evidence it was ever rebuilt. The location of the glass works was behind the current brick homes in the area of 109-119 Mather Street in Manchester. Mather’s home in Manchester, where he lived from 1827 to 1844, is located at 97 Mather Street, at the corner of Eastfield Street. Mather was a Mason and the local Lodge met in his house from 1829 to 1844. A painting of the house by Manchester artist Russell Cheney (1881-1945) is in the Masonic Temple on East Center Street in Manchester. A hearth with original paneling, taken from the Mather House, is also now located in the Masonic Temple with an inscription recognizing Mather’s contributions to Masonry.
The house at 26 Hurlbutt Road in Gales Ferry, Ledyard, was built in 1844 for George A. Bailey, a whaling captain, who owned it until 1861. After passing through other owners, it was purchased by Elizabeth Frost of New Jersey, whose family used it as a summer home. The Frosts modified the house, adding the current wraparound porch. In later decades, Nelson Parker could often be seen sitting on the porch. He bought the house in 1921 and his family owned it for 52 years. Active in local community affairs, Nelson Parker was known as an unofficial mayor of Ledyard. He had earlier been in business in Norwich, as described in Vol. III of A Modern History of New London County (1922):
Nelson Parker, the seventh child of Richard Samuel and Mary M. (Selsor) Parker, was reared and educated in Brooklyn, New York, receiving his formal training in the public schools. He then learned the paint manufacturing business with his father, and the two worked side by side in carrying on the business, until the elder Parker’s death. At that time Mrs. Parker became president of the company, and Mr. Nelson Parker secretary and treasurer, as well as general manager. This arrangement still continues, and the business is now one of the important industries of Norwich. The original name of Parker, Preston & Company is still retained. Besides being one of the foremost manufacturers of Norwich, Mr. Parker is interested in every phase of public life, and stands for the best in civic development and progress. In political choice he is a Republican. He is a member of Somerset Lodge, No. 34, Free and Accepted Masons, and is a member of the Chamber of Commerce. The family are members of the Central Baptist Church. On September 17, 1911, Nelson Parker married Mary H. Hurlbutt, of Gales Ferry, Connecticut, daughter of Henry W. and Lydia (Perkins) Hurlbutt. Mr. and Mrs. Parker are the parents of one daughter, Margaret H. Parker.
At 156 South Main Street in Colchester is a Greek Revival house with Colonial Revival additions that include an elliptical attic light, long gabled wing on the right side and a one-story veranda. The house was built circa 1840 to 1850, being purchased in the latter year from David Carroll by Dr. Solomon Everest Swift (1819-1895), a dentist who practiced homeopathic medicine. After Dr. Swift‘s death, his widow Almira Lathrop Swift (1822-1904) (who had attended Bacon Academy) lived in the house until her own death. Their daughter, Caroline Swift Willard (1863-1950), probably made the Colonial Revival alterations/additions between 1896 and 1919, the year she eventually sold the house, having moved to Redlands, California. From the late 1990s until 2006, the house was used as a gift shop and is now lawyers’ offices.
The section of South Glastonbury just north of the Portland town line is a district called Taylortown because of the many members of the Taylor family who lived there. The 1869 atlas of Hartford County lists the house at 194 Main Street in Taylortown (built c. 1840) as the residence of O. Taylor. This was most likely Oswin Taylor (1809-1898), who once owned the Consolidated Feldspar Quarry on the west side of Main Street.
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