Carlyle Johnson Machine Company (1904)

52 Main St

The factory building at 52 Main Street in Manchester was erected in 1904 by Frank Goetz, owner of a large commercial bakery he had established in the late nineteenth century south of Depot Square. Goetz erected the brick masonry structure to replace an earlier wood frame building that had housed his bakery until it was destroyed by fire in 1902. This earlier building is probably the one mentioned in a notice in the Building New Supplement, Vol. IX, no. 8 (August 25, 1888):

Frank Goetz, proprietor of the Vienna bakery, has broken ground for a commodious building for business purposes on Main street, at the corner of Hilliard street.

The wood structure burned on February 17, 1904, during the most severe snowstorm of the season. Almost as soon as the new building was finished, Goetz sold the property to the Carlyle Johnson Machine Company, manufacturers of friction clutches and marine gears, and moved his bakery to New Haven. Carlyle Johnson later moved to Bolton.

Fowler-Frisbie-West House (1682)

33 Fair St., Guilford

The structure at 33 and 37 Fair Street in Guilford has had a long and complicated history. By 1740 Mehitabel and Anna Fowler lived in a house at 33 Fair Street. A title search has revealed that their house had been built c. 1682 by the Fowler Sisters’ father and transferred to them in 1727. The house was acquired in 1824 by Russell Frisbie, who may have rebuilt or replaced the original house. In 1864, an Italian Villa-style structure (with the address of 37 Fair Street), either moved from elsewhere or newly erected, was attached to the older house. Here resided Frisbie‘s granddaughter Cornelia and her husband, Dr. Benjamin West. Their son, Dr. Redfield West altered the entire building to have a Gothic appearance, but it was later returned to its earlier appearance. Dr. Redfield West had earlier practiced medicine in New York, Boston and New Haven. As related in the Proceedings of the Connecticut State Medical Society (1921)

In order to be with his parents in their declining years, he removed to Guilford in 1892, opened his office in the house in which he was born and where he died, and soon succeeded in establishing a large and lucrative practice. Early in life he became intensely interested and very successful in chemical researches, and in 1899, and also 1900, was granted letters patent for improvements in photographic printing. In 1894 Dr. West was appointed by Governor Morris, State Chemist; reappointed by Governor Coffin in 1896; again by Governor Cooke in 1898, and by Governor Lounsbury in 1900. In 1897 he was appointed town health officer for Guilford, and also medical examiner in the same year, offices which he held for a period of years.

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Woodside (1729)

Woodside

I would like to know more about the house at 11 Dudley Street in Norwich. The plaque on the house gives it a date of 1729 and calls it “Woodside.” The style of the house was obviously much altered in the nineteenth century, as it now has features, such as the front portico, the brackets and the curved windows in the gable end, that are typical of the Italianate style. The property also has a large barn, which is listed on Historic Barns of Connecticut (with an address of 8 Dudley Street), but without much information about the structure. Perhaps it dates to the time the house was altered in the Italianate style, as the barn has an Italianate cupola.

Charles Pomeroy Ives House (1875)

18 Totoket Rd., Branford

The house at 18 Totoket Road in Branford was built c. 1860-1875 for Charles Pomeroy Ives (1847-1933). An 1872 graduate of Yale Law School, Ives was a lawyer and farmer (also described as a “farmer-philosopher”) who was the first in Connecticut to market milk bottles. He had a 200-acre dairy farm in Branford called Fellsmere Farm. In 1933, at the age of 87, Ives went missing from his farm. His body was found three days later a mile-and-a-half from his home. He had died from exhaustion and exposure. Starting in 1983 the house was substantially altered: the windows, siding and other exterior features were replaced and the interior was gutted.

Daniel Tyler House (1810)

Daniel Tyler House

The city property listing for the house at 130 Washington Street in Norwich gives a construction date of 1810, which seems too early for this Italianate building. The National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Chelsea Parade Historic District gives a date of c. 1880, which is too late because it is known that Edith Kermit Carow, future wife of Theodore Roosevelt, was born here on August 6, 1861. The house has clearly been much altered over the years. Could Italianate features have been added to a much earlier house? It was the residence of Daniel Putnam Tyler (1799-1882), Edith‘s grandfather (Tyler’s daughter Gertrude had married Charles Carow of New York City). Daniel Tyler was a West Point graduate who became an iron manufacturer and railroad president. He served as a general in the Civil War, commanding a division in the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run. Although he took a substantial portion of the blame for the Union disaster at that battle, he was promoted and commanded a brigade at the Siege of Corinth, Mississippi. At the Battle of Harpers Ferry, September 15, 1862, Tyler’s division surrendered to Stonewall Jackson and spent two months as prisoners of war at Camp Douglas before being officially paroled. Tyler left the army in 1864, the same year his wife passed away. He owned his house in Norwich until 1868. By the start of the twenty-first century the building had become dilapidated and was condemned, but c. 2004 it was restored and subdivided into apartments.