The son of house builder David Smith, Arthur Smith was born in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport in 1847. After going to sea in his youth, he went into the coal business and later founded Smith’s Express Company. In 1893, he built a house in Black Rock at 118 Ellsworth Street (he had had an earlier house at 260 Brewster Street). The house was constructed by the Gould Brothers, local builders who lived nearby in Black Rock.
The Everett Bevins House is an 1880 Victorian Gothic house at 6 Riverton Road in Barkhamsted. It is currently home to Sweet Pea’s Restaurant.
After Sabin Smith laid out Prospect Street in New London in 1837, he began selling off lots, one of which was acquired by William Holt. The Greek Revival house Holt built for himself, around 1840-1845, is at No. 19 Prospect Street. It has a later Colonial Revival entry porch.
The house at 404 Main Street in Old Saybrook has been dated back to 1697 or even 1687. By the mid-eighteenth century, the house was owned by John Shipman. This Cape-style house has been altered over the years, but still has four fireplaces and a beehive oven in the kitchen.
As described in History of the town of Litchfield, Connecticut (1845), by George C. Woodruff:
The members of the Church of England in this town, associated together for public worship about the year 1746, and it appears from their records that the Episcopal Society “was organized according to law, on the 26th of October, A, D. 1784.” Their first Church was erected nearly opposite the carriage manufactory of Mr. William Lord, about one mile westerly from the Court House. Their Church in the village was completed in the year 1812.
As further related in Historic Litchfield, 1721-1907 (1907), by Alice T. Bulkeley:
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church was dedicated in 1851 and is the third edifice, the first being built in 1749 about a mile west of the courthouse. The present church had a spire above the tower which was blown down in a storm a few years ago.
The current church building was erected in 1919-1921. In The Litchfield Book of Days (1900) is the following story about the earliest of these four church buildings:
When General Washington passed through Litchfield in the Revolutionary War, the soldiers, to evince their attachment to him, threw a shower of stones at the windows of the Episcopal Church. He reproved them, saying: “I am a Churchman, and wish not to see the church dishonored and desolated in this manner.”
At 228 Ellsworth Street, in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport, is an Italianate house with an ornate veranda and wide projecting eaves. It was built in 1853 by carpenter and housewright Oliver Burr as his own residence. After 1860, the house was home to two generations of the Burroughs family.
The house at 118 Washington Street in Norwich was built in 1809 by John Vernet. Born in France, the aristocratic Vernet had fled the French Revolution and settled first in Martinique and later in Norwich. In 1802, he married Ann Brown, daughter of tavern-keeper Jesse Brown. Vernet built an expensive and elegant house on property that had been owned by his father-in-law, but he quickly faced financial difficulties. Vernet sold the house in 1811 or 1812 and moved with his family to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The house was bought by Benjamin Lee of Cambridge, whose family owned it for sixty years. According to tradition, the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad and had a tunnel to the river, but this has not been confirmed by physical evidence. In 1873, the house was sold to Albert P. Sturtevant, a manufacturer, and was home to his son, Charles P. Sturtevent. In 1920, the house became the Rectory of Christ Episcopal Church, but today it is again a private residence.
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