The Dillon Building, at 69-71 Pratt Street in Hartford, is named for Charles Dillon, a Hartford millinery merchant. The building was built in 1899 and designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr. It has elaborate ornamentation on the upper floors, featuring decorative floral panels called Rinceau.
Across from the Westminster Congregational Church in Canterbury is a c. 1807 house built for Reverend Erastus Learned, who was minister at the church from 1805 until his death in 1824. His daughter, Mary, married Samuel Colcord Bartlett, who was president of Dartmouth College from 1877 to 1892.
Built sometime between 1875 and 1878, the James Abbott House, on First Avenue in Waterbury, is transitional in style between High Victorian Gothic and Queen Anne. It was built for James M. Abbott of Holmes, Booth & Haydens, a brass and copper manufacturing company that was the first to produce silver plates for making daguerreotypes. As mentioned in Waterbury and Her Industries (1889), Abbot “was treasurer from 1867 to 1869, when A. S. Chase was elected president and treasurer, and Mr. Abbott was made secretary, a position he held for many years.” At the turn-of-the-century, the house was owned by George Rockwell. According to the History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Volume 3 (1918):
Rogers & Brother became members of the International Silver Company at the time of its organization, in the year 1898, and the business at Waterbury has remained under the management of George Rockwell, the former treasurer and manager of Rogers & Brother, and present director and secretary of the International Silver Company.
In the mid-twentieth century, the house was divided into four apartments.
As described by David N. Camp in his History of New Britain, with sketches of Farmington and Berlin, Connecticut (1889):
The people from Unionville, or Union District, Farmington, as it was termed, were, for many years, accustomed to attend church services at Farmington, or at West Avon. After the canal was opened the trip to the mother church at Farmington, for a portion of the year, was made by boat. Religious meetings had been held in Unionville for some time, but the church was not organized until March 30,1841 […] The first house of worship was erected on the park, and in 1852 was removed and enlarged. But the congregation becoming too large for this building, a handsome stone edifice was erected, which, with the organ, cost $44,000, and was dedicated May 27, 1886.
In the 1950s, a modern addition was built onto the front of the First Church of Christ Congregational.
The Samuel Pellet House, on North Canterbury Road in Canterbury, was constructed around 1752. Samuel Pellet built the new house at the time of his second marriage, to Hannah Underwood. The couple planted two sycamore trees in front of the house, signifying husband and wife. One was lost in the 1938 hurricane, but the other survives today. According to tradition, Sarah Harris, Prudence Crandall’s first black student, worked as a servant in the house for a later owner. The house’s ell served as a post office from 1933 to 1944.
The Edward Waldo Homestead is a vernacular saltbox house on Waldo Road in Scotland. It was built in 1715 by Edward Waldo, on land along the Shetucket River he had purchased in 1702. The house, which later had two wings added, remained in the Waldo family until 1971. Daniel Waldo, who was born in the house in 1762, served as Chaplain of the House of Representatives from 1856 until his death in 1864. Also born in the house was Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783-1861), portraitist, art critic and a founder member of the National Academy of Design. When its last owner, Ruth Waldo, died in 1975, she bequeathed the house to the Antiquarian & Landmarks Society and the surrounding fields to the Connecticut Forest and Park Association. The house is now a museum operated by the Scotland Historical Society. Each year, the surrounding fields host the Scotland Connecticut Highland Games.
Located on Windham Center Green and owned by the adjacent Windham Library is the small gambrel-roofed former office of Dr. Chester Hunt. Built in 1790, it originally served as the office of Sheriff Shubel Abbe and was located behind his house at the south end of Windham Green. Abbe’s property was purchased in 1819 by Dr. Chester Hunt who then used the office until his death in 1869. Moved in 1948 to a spot between two other houses on North Road, the building was moved again in the 1980s to its current location where it was restored in honor of Julian Alden Weir and his wife, Ella Baker Weir, by his daughter, Cora Weir Burlingham and grandson, Charles Burlingham, Jr. The Library has recently renovated the office’s exterior and there are plans to open it as a museum.
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