Governor Charles H. Pond House (1845)

Charles Hobby Pond, born in Milford in 1781, served as Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1850 to 1853 and, after the resignation of Governor Thomas H. Seymour, served as Governor for seven months (1853-1854). Pond’s Greek Revival house, on North Broad Street across from Milford Green, was built in 1845. Pond died in 1861 and in 1864 a relative of the same name, who was a New York businessman, began construction nearby of the estate that would later be known as Lauralton Hall. In the twentieth century, the Pond House became home to the Cody-White Funeral Home, begun in the 1930s by S. Harrington White and purchased in 1956 by Thomas J. Cody, Sr.

T. A. Hungerford Memorial Library (1909)

Theodore Alfred Hungerford, the son of a local merchant, was born in Harwinton in 1838. He later became successful in the New York publishing business. In 1903, Hungerford’s nephew, Newman Hungerford, convinced him to endow a library as his memorial in his home town. The T. A. Hungerford Memorial Library, including (according to legend) a tomb for Mr. Hungerford in the basement, was completed in 1909. Although it is no longer the town’s public library, it continues to serve as a museum of the town’s history, with a collection of artifacts begun by Newman Hungerford.

Old Stone Store, Chester (1809)

A striking landmark of the village of Chester is the Old Stone Store, built in 1809. It has housed many businesses over the years, as well as a post office. In 1875, when Chester‘s earliest Library Association was founded, the library was located on the second floor of the building. At that time the building was a general store operated by J. Kirtland Denison, who also served as Town Clerk, succeeding his father Judge Socrates Denison in that position in 1877. The building’s prominent columns and Greek Revival pediment were probably added after the Store was built. The two side wings are definitely a modern addition.

First Congregational Church of Granby (1834)

The origins of Granby’s First Congregational Church go back to 1736, when Granby was still a part of Simsbury. According to The Memorial History of Hartford County (1886), early meetings “were held for a time in the house of Daniel Hays, which was also used as a tavern.” The North West or Salmon Brook Ecclesiastical Society was established in 1739. According to Noah A. Phelps’s History of Simsbury, Granby, and Canton (1845):

it appears, that their first meeting was held in May 1739. It was convened to adopt measures in reference to the construction of a meeting–house. But, as the meeting could not agree where to set the house, application was made to the General Assembly for a committee to settle the question. On report of the committee, the site established was on the hill north of Salmon brook village. The first meeting-house was erected at this place in 1740. It’s dimensions were, thirty by forty-five feet.

In the course of a few years, by the extension of population westwardly, the house was left so far from the centre of population as to cause complaint, and induce a majority of the society to adopt measures for its removal. Their efforts were successful. In 1775 the house was taken down and removed about two miles in a north-westvvardly direction, to a place designated by a committee appointed by the County Court, where it was re-built. In 1793 the house was enlarged and painted inside. This house was taken down, and a new one erected in 1834. The new house stands a few rods northerly from the site of the old one. It is a commodious building, sixty by forty feet, is painted and has a tower and bell.

Origen S. Seymour’s Offices (1846)

At 21 South Street in Litchfield is a brick building built in 1846 as offices for Origen S. Seymour (1804-1881), a lawyer who served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851-1855) and as a judge of the superior court of Connecticut (1855-1863). More about the life of Origen S. Seymour can be read in the book, Memorial of Origen Storrs Seymour, of Litchfield, Connecticut, published in 1882. The Greek Revival building continues to be used as offices.

The Pillars (1850)

Built around 1850 by the Seymour family, the house on Chapman Street in Newington known as “The Pillars” combines Italianate and Greek Revival features. The house is distinguished by its strikingly large entrance portico with Tuscan columns. Substantial restorations to the building were completed in 1986 following damage from a fire. In 1901, Amy and James Archer were hired to look after the house’s resident, an elderly widower named John Seymour. After Seymour died in 1904, his heirs turned the building into a boarding house for the elderly, with the Archers staying on to provide care for the residents. The house was known as “Sister Amy’s Nursing Home for the Elderly.” In 1907, the heirs sold the house and the Archers moved to Windsor, where they established the Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm. Between 1907 and 1917, there were 60 suspicious deaths in the Archer Home, as well as the deaths of Amy Archer’s first husband James and her second husband Michael Gilligan. Amy Archer-Gilligan, who had purchased large amounts of arsenic, was eventually found guilty of murder in a famous case which inspired the play and film, Arsenic and Old Lace. The Seymour House in Newington was later owned by Philip Brown, who ran the Newington Junction Post Office until 1944. Today the house is subdivided into apartments.

Durham Town Hall (1849)

Durham‘s Greek-Revival Town Hall was built in 1847 to 1849 as the town’s South Congregational Church. When the town’s second meeting house burned in 1836, a split develeoped over where to build the new church. A new meeting house was eventually built again on the Green, but controversy recommenced when this third meeting house burned in 1844. One building, North Church, now Durham’s present United Church, was built north of Allyn’s Brook in 1847, while another meeting house, South Church, was built on the old site on the Green. The town’s two churches reunited in 1886 and South Church was later sold to the town for use as offices. With its steeple removed, the building now serves as Town Hall.