American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailor’s Reading Room (1841)

One of the buildings at Mystic Seaport is set up to represent the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailor’s Reading Room. The Society was incorporated in 1833 to provide moral and religious alternatives to the saloons, boardinghouses and brothels frequented by sailors while in port. The organization is best known for the libraries it placed aboard American ships for the use of sailors. The Society’s records are now held the Collections Research Center at Mystic Seaport. This historic organization is interpreted for Mystic Seaport visitors in a building erected c. 1841 as a work shop and tool shed by Clark Greenman of the George Greenman & Co. Shipyard. Starting in 1951, it was used as the Seaport’s Children’s museum, before housing the Reading Room exhibit. The building originally stood where the Treworgy Planetarium was built in 1960. It was moved to its current location in 1959. (more…)

Pierpont Store (1845)

The building at 31 State Street in North Haven was built c. 1845 by Rufus Pierpont (1818-1855), adjacent to the 1795 Pierpont Homsetead, to serve as a general store. His son, Joseph Pierpont, continued the business, was operated by the family until 1942, when it closed during World War II due to a lack of help. A Greek Revival building, it was enlarged and remodeled in the Italianate style with a storefront on the west side and a side porch and projecting bay on the south side. These alterations were the work of Solomon Linsley, a Civil War veteran and local builder in North Haven.

Smith & Winchester Manufacturing Company (1908)

The former factory complex of the Smith & Winchester Manufacturing Company, which produced paper making machinery, is located at 11 Machine Shop Hill Road in South Windham. The main building displays two dates: 1828 and 1908. The latter is probably the date that particular building was constructed. The former date is when Phelps & Spafford, the forerunners of Smith & Winchester, were first established in South Windsor. That company closed in 1837 and was sold to Charles Smith and Harvey Winchester. The company continued manufacturing through the 1960s.

Conference House, Ellington (1835)

At 113-119 Maple Street in Ellington is a house built in 1835 with Italianate decorative features that were added later. A large second-floor room, known as the Conference Room, was used by the local Baptist Church when it was founded in the 1840s. This church appears not to have continued to the present day, as the current Ellington Baptist Church was established in 1993 by members who had been previously attending the Somers Baptist Church.

Martha Culver House (1857)

Ammi Culver, who owned a brickyard on the banks of the Quinnipiac River, built the house at 290 Quinnipiac Avenue in North Haven in 1857. After his death in 1865, his widow Delia lived their with her children, Benjamin and Martha, and Samuel Sackett, her second husband. Martha Culver (1864-1926) married Frank Smith, but soon divorced him. After traveling for some years, she lived the rest of her life in her old family home in North Haven. She later willed her house and land to the the town, stipulating that the property be used as a community gathering place that would include a library and recreational fields. She had been a member of the Friday Afternoon Club, which had started a private library in 1912. First located in the vestibule of the Baptist Church, it moved to the Culver house in 1927 and continued in operation by the Friday Afternoon Club until 1962 and thereafter by the town as the Montowese branch of the North Haven Public Library until 1978, when library operations were consolidated at the main town library. Today Martha Culver Memorial is preserved by the North Haven Historical Society as a house museum and also contains the Brockett collection of early farm tools and equipment.

Adelaide Wilcox House (1852)

The house at 880 Hopmeadow Street in Simsbury, named for Miss Adelaide Wilcox, was built in 1852-1853 and has been owned by a number of prominent families associated with the Ensign Bickford Company. Originally having an Italianate design, the house was altered to the Neo-Classical Revival style around 1900. Also added was a third floor with a grand ballroom. Since 1950 the house has been the Vincent Funeral Home.