At 3 Pratt Street in Essex, near Essex Square, is a Greek Revival house built in 1838 by Champlin Lamphier as a speculation. He immediately sold it to William Gladding, who changed his last name to Gladwin. Gladwin’s family lived in the house until 1891.
The Bela Davis House at 31 Main Street (formerly 12 Main Street) in Durham has a Greek Revival central doorway and Greek Revival cornice returns on the gable ends. The house was built in 1865 by farmer Bela Davis (1800-1887) who had purchased seven acres from Zebulon Hale. He owned the house for ten years.
Across the street from the First Congregational Church of Vernon is the Halsey Fuller House at 684 Hartford Turnpike. It was built in 1830. Halsey Fuller married Lydia Lee of Vernon in 1822.
The Greek Revival house at 555 Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport was originally located on Fairfield Avenue. It was built for Deacon David Sherwood, a farmer, and was known as the “pink house.” According to A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Vol. I (1886), by Samuel Orcutt:
Dea. David Sherwood, a descendant of Matthew, through Samuel, John and Stephen, purchased this farm owned by Dea. Lemuel one hundred years before, consisting of one hundred acres, in 1830. He was chosen deacon of the First Church, in 1831, and served about twenty-five years. He died January 24, 1873, at the age of 94 years.
He cultivated and kept his farm nearly intact until his decease. The population and improvements had so surrounded him, that his land had become very valuable. He died with the impression that he was very rich. The land has been mostly sold, streets have been laid over it, and these acres are covered with manufactures, stores and fine residences; and a teeming, busy, population, with a school house and chapels.
In 1874, the house was moved to its current address to become the residence of George Willett, a bakery owner. The house was later remodeled with Colonial Revival elements.
The house at 17 Prospect Street in New London, built not long after 1845, is one of several houses on the street attributed to local builder John Bishop. The design for this high-stye Greek Revival house’s columns is taken from Minard Lafever‘s pattern book, The Beauties of Modern Architecture (1835).
The upcoming issue of Connecticut Explored magazine has a picture of the building at the southwest corner of Bank and Golden Streets in New London. It was built in 1844 as the home of Captain Giles Harris and had a grocery store on the ground floor. It was built on the site of an earlier house, constructed in the later 1700s, which had been the home of Dr. Samuel Brown and his wife Sarah. When she passed away in 1794, the house was sold to Daniel Deshon and in 1844 to Capt. Harris. A number of businesses existed in the building over the years. From 1919 to 1985, the building was home to a restaurant, known after 1931 as the Hygienic Restaurant, a popular 24 hour eatery. After the restaurant closed, the building remained vacant until it was threatened with demolition in 1996. Saved by preservationists and the local arts community, the building was restored to become Hygienic Art, Inc., a center of the fine arts community. An adjacent lot was acquired in 2001 and developed into the Hygienic Sculpture Gardens and Outdoor Theater Art Park.
A two-story building with Gothic Revival windows and a Doric columned entry porch (on the right in the image above) was built in 1908 on Market Street in Collinsville to serve as the Town Hall of Canton. The town hall later expanded into a much larger nineteenth-century building next door on Main Street (the large building in the image above). It was originally a commercial structure that had stores at street level and offices above.
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