Greek Revival - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Dr. Ashbel Woodward House (1835)

The Dr. Ashbel Woodward House is located at 387 Route 32 in Franklin. It is a Greek Revival house, built in 1835 (or, by some accounts, 1824). It was once the home of Dr. Ashbel Woodward. Born in Willington in 1804 and educated at Bowdoin College, Dr. Woodward served the medical needs of Franklin residents from 1829 until his death in 1885. He also served as a surgeon with the 26th Connecticut Regiment in the Civil War. Dr. Woodward kept a farm and the property has a number of agricultural outbuildings. A local historian and genealogist, Dr. Woodward wrote a number of historical and biographical papers and delivered an address on the history of Franklin on October 14, 1868. His descendants gave the house and land to the state in 1947 and it was later used by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection as part of a wildlife study site. The state sold the house to the town of Franklin in 2000 and in 2004 it opened as a historical museum displaying artifacts from the town’s history.

Hyde Schoolhouse (1863)

Yesterday I featured the Carriage House at Johnsonville, a now abandoned Victorian-themed village attraction in East Haddam originally created by Raymond Schmitt, founder of of AGC Corporation. One of the buildings that Schmitt brought to Johnsonville is the Hyde Schoolhouse. It was originally built in Canterbury between 1853 and 1863 and was said to have been discovered by Schmitt’s wife Carole in an abandoned state, surrounded by overgrowth.

Albert B Wildman House (1852)

William E. Weld, a builder of many homes in Guilford in the nineteenth century, built the house at 88 Boston Street for Albert B. Wildman in 1852. Albert Boardman Wildman (1810-1878) was a merchant whose store was at 11 Boston Street (also built by Weld). Wildman was eulogized by Henry Pynchon Robinson in Guilford Portraits (1907):

ALBERT BOARDMAN WILDMAN.
June 2, 1810—May 2, 1878.
He stood uprightly tall and manly fair,
And wore on his smooth face the higher air
Of honor and proved probity, unswerving.
It seemed quite natural nor needed nerving
From sermon or from motive practical;
The gift, its own reward, more actual.
He was a merchant, of an older time,
When six pence passed by candlelight for dime.
Tuttle he knew and loved and linked the name
With his; merchants of good report and fame,
Successful through their dealing days and lives.
Not such as bold and meritless connives
To seize and turn the common weal to woe,
But sought by willing suffrage he did go
And added Guilford to the common sense;
Then through the war he served by son and pence.
His manner frank and fair and mild and genial,
As fellow man, well would treat a menial.
A father of the town, he walked our ways
And then from life retreated, full of praise.

Talcott-Hollister House (1851)

Various dates have been given for the Federal/Greek Revival house at 2146 Main Street in Glastonbury. Some claim 1780, while the Historical Society of Glastonbury records give 1850/1851. Notable for its tin roof, it is known as the Talcott-Hollister House. Replacing an earlier Talcott Homestead, torn down in 1850, it was built the following year by Jared Talcott. It was next home to his son, Capt. Charles H. Talcott, and later to Charles‘ daughter Charlotte and her husband, Norman E. Hollister (1845-1923).

Blakeslee Barnes House (1820)

Blakeslee Barns was a tinsmith in Berlin who lived at 857 Worthington Ridge. I don’t know if he is the same as or related to the Blakeslee Barns (also d. 1823) of Philadelphia who made pewter plates. As related by by Catharine Melinda North in her History of Berlin (1916):

Mr. Barnes had unusual natural business faculty, and in his occupation as a tinner, conducted, with a number of apprentices, in a shop near his home, he was quite prosperous. Denied the advantages of schools in boyhood, he studied, after he began business, to make up his lack of book knowledge. […] After a while Mr. Barnes moved up on to the street where he died, August 1, 1823, aged forty-two years. It is supposed that he built the house which he occupied, and which was afterward purchased and remodeled by Captain Peck, now owned by Daniel Webster.

[…] Going east from the tannery, on the crest of the hill, at the left hand, stands a factory bearing the name of “Justus and William Bulkeley,” who in 1823 started here in the business of making tinners’ tools. Horse power was used at first and ten men were employed. The tools were forged in this shop, and then were taken to what is known as Risley’s saw mill, to be ground and polished. Justus Bulkeley, who lived in the house east of the shop, died in 1844. His brother William continued the business and, in 1850, put an engine into the factory.

Colonel [William] Bulkeley purchased his place in 1823 of Blakeslee Barnes, or of his estate. At that time the shop, and the house which is a part of that now occupied by the Rev. E. E. Nourse, stood on the south side of the road, between the Bulkeley house and barn, and had been used by Mr. Barnes for the manufacture of tinware. Mr. Bulkeley was a genial man, full of fun, and a good neighbor—one of the kind who would go out of his way to do a favor. In his day, whenever there was an auction in town, Colonel Bulkeley was called upon to conduct the sale. By his ready wit he made much fun for the people, as he led up to the final “Going, going, gone.”

The Sixth Connecticut Regiment was organized in 1739. Mr. Bulkeley was colonel of that regiment, 1834-1836, and thus received his title. Colonel Bulkeley died in 1878, aged eighty-one.

[…] after some years Captain Norman Peck purchased the property. The shop was moved down onto the triangle made by the division of the roads on the way to the station from Berlin street, and was called Captain Peck’s farmhouse.

The Federal-style Barnes House, built sometime before 1823 (perhaps as early as 1789?), was later altered in the Greek Revival style and then had Colonial Revival additions, including the porte-cochère.

Portersville Academy (1839)

Portersville Academy in Mystic was built in 1839 by the Town of Groton as its Fifth District School. Mystic was then called Portersville. It was constructed by Amos Clift (1808-1878), a local builder who also built many homes in Mystic Bridge. Originally located north of the Union Baptist Church on High Street, the building was moved in 1887 to its current address at 76 High Street, where it served as Mystic’s First Voting Hall until 1958. Portersville Academy was acquired and restored by the Mystic River Historical Society in 1975-1978. It is now open to the public as a museum.

Stoughton Building (1840)

Facing Plymouth Green and adjacent to the Plymouth Congregational Church is the Stoughton Building. I don’t know what its original purpose was, but it was built circa 1840 and once stood on the east side of North Street, about where St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (now the First Baptist Church) was later built. It is said that the building was moved to its current location in the 1890s under cover of darkness to avoid trouble with those who had opposed moving it. The Stoughton building’s bell tower, gable fanlight, and south wing are later additions. The building is used as an annex to the Plymouth Congregational Church.