The Italianate-style house at 559 Old Main Street in Rocky Hill was built around 1850. It is also possible that the house was built much earlier and was then later adapted to the Italianate style. In the mid-nineteenth century, the house was owned by William Neff, a merchant who ran a wagon shop at Rocky Hill landing along the Connecticut River.
Built in 1853, the Captain William E. Wheeler House is an Italianate residence at 159 High Street in Mystic. According to A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, Volume 3 (1922):
William E. Wheeler, born at Stonington, went to sea on a sailing vessel, later on whaling vessels, and still later on coasting vessels, sailing from New York to southern United States ports. In 1854, he went into the East India trade, sailing from New York to China for A. A. Lowe & Brothers on the barque “Penguin.” In 1865 he ran a steamer from New York to southern ports. He was a member of the State Legislature, and very prominent as a Democrat. He married, in Groton, August 24, 1831, Pedee Heath, of Groton, and they became the parents of four children
As related in Groton, Conn. 1705-1905, by Charles R. Stark:
William E. Wheeler, [State representative in] 1873 and 1875, was a sea captain sailing in the employ of A. A. Low & Co. in the China tea trade and was afterwards in the general store business in Mystic. He died in 1889.
The house at 528 Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport is an Italiante villa, built in 1848 and remodeled and enlarged in 1864. Originally the residence of Salem H. Wales, the house is now used as the offices of a law firm. In 1849, Salem Howe Wales (1825-1902) bought an interest in the Scientific American magazine and became one of its editors. In 1871, he retired from the magazine to focus on politics in New York City. He was appointed a Commissioner of Public Parks and was chosen as its president. In 1874, he ran for Mayor of New York on the Republican ticket, but was defeated. Wales was also the father-in-law of Elihu Root, a lawyer and statesman who in 1905 replaced John Hay as Secretary of State in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. The poet Joel Benton, in his 1905 memoir Persons and Places, relates an anecdote of P.T. Barnum:
On a certain Fourth of July celebration, held in the Court House Park, in Bridgeport, the late Salem H. Wales presided, and Mr. Barnum and others made speeches for the occasion. When Mr. Wales introduced Barnum, he, of course, was studiously facetious, as the situation would naturally compel him to be, so little was an introduction necessary in this case. But Barnum was not confused nor. upset by the happy badinage. His repartee was ready when the moment for speaking arrived; and something like this was the way he prefaced his remarks: “I don’t know, fellow citizens and neighbors, why I am asked to speak here to-day. I have really nothing important to offer; and my business should have kept me in New York. While Wales is here showing me up, I ought to be at the Museum showing up whales.” And much more he added, with that genial twinkle of the eye which was an unvarying accompaniment to his playful words.
Hartford’s Northwest District School began with just two rooms in 1870 and was later much enlarged, with additions in 1885, 1891, 1899, 1905 and 1910. In 1914, the 1891 section was moved aside to make room for a final addition. This was said to have been the largest relocation of a brick building in New England up to that time. All of the school complex, except for that 1891 section, were demolished in 1978. The surviving building was used as offices by the Hartford Board of Education until 1997 and was then left vacant for many years. It will soon be the home of the John E. Rogers African American Cultural Center, which will serve as a historical and educational institution for research.
Sadly, this building was so badly damaged by a fire in the early hours of August 10, 2021, that it had to be demolished the next day.
I’m presenting the New Hartford House Hotel (in New Hartford) in this post, although I still have some questions about the history of this building. If anyone has further details, please contribute to the comments! It was built in 1888 (according to this post). A former hotel (it was once painted pink in the 1970s!), it now contains a restaurant and shops on the first floor with apartments above. There was an earlier tavern at the same location that was replaced by the current building. In 1846, Elias Howe was living in this earlier New Hartford House and using the basement as a mechanic’s shop. On September 10, 1846, Howe became the first person to be awarded a patent for a sewing machine using a lock-stitch design. A Handbook of New England (1916), by Porter E. Sargent, states that “In Howe’s shop, on the site of the New Hartford House, woman first sewed a stitch on a sewing-machine.”
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The Riverton General Store in Barkhamsted was built in 1889 and was originally owned and operated by the Hart Brothers. Charles Rowley bought the store in 1899 and passed it to his son, Alcott, in 1907. Both men were village postmasters in Riverton and the store was at the center of the village‘s social life. The hall above was once the meeting place of such groups as the Barkhamsted Chamber of Commerce and the Riverton Grange #169, which was founded there in 1908. The wing, now attached to the right of the original 1889 Italianate-style main block, was originally a separate building (built c. 1885). It was attached to the store in 1910. Later owners of the store (through 1934) were A. L. Lewis and Ernest G. Jordan. The store is still in business today.
An Italianate double house at 55 Crescent Street in Middletown, the Wilcox-Meech House was built between 1867 and 1872 (or between 1880 and 1890) by John Wilcox, Middletown’s Chief of Police. George Thomas Meech purchased the property in 1881 and lived there into the 1930s. George T. Meech had served in the Civil War and later was a partner with Orrin E. Stoddard in the Meech & Stoddard grain and feed store. The house was owned by the Hubbard family (and became known as the Hubbard Estate) from 1937 to 1973, when it was acquired by Middlesex Memorial Hospital. It is now used by the hospital as offices.
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