Theophilus Hyde House (1893)

The Theophilus Hyde House, built on Pine Street in Waterbury in 1893, is good example of a Queen Anne house with Stick style details. According to The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, Vol. 2 (1896), edited by Joseph Anderson:

Theophilus Rogers Hyde, son of Theophilus Rogers and Fanny (Hazard) Hyde, was born in Stonington, December 18, 1855. He was educated at the high school in Westerly, R. I., and graduated from there in June, 1874. In September following he came to Waterbury to accept a position in the office of the Scovill Manufacturing company, and has continued there until the present time. On March 11, 1880, he married Jennie Pelton, daughter of William Burdon of Brooklyn, N. Y. They have five children, three sons and two daughters

105 Asylum Street, Hartford (1855)

The commercial building at 105-115 Asylum Street, on the corner of Trumbull Street, was built around 1855 by Timothy Allyn, who owned the Allyn House hotel and served as mayor of Hartford. The building has been owned by his descendants ever since. In 1896, the building housed Willis & Wilson, a clothing store, whose owners commissioned the architect Isaac Allen, Jr. to design a new two story cast-iron front for the building. Manufactured by the George S. Lincoln Company, the intricately designed front, with broad display windows, has been a Hartford landmark ever since. From 1909 to 1989, the building was home to Willis and Wilson’s successors, Stackpole, Moore & Tryon, a clothing store which later moved down the street. The old building was recently renovated and now houses a bank.

Frederick Whittlesey House (1881)

Frederick Whittlesey, a dry goods merchant, built a house in 1881 at the corner of West Main Street and Grove Hill in New Britain. Whittlesey married Maria Carter Gilbert in 1861 and in 1881, the year the house was built, he married his second wife, Mary Wadsworth. The house was later home to his two unmarried daughters, Mary Swift Whittlesey (1865-1956) and Frances Whittlesey (1872-1970). Mary Swift Whittlesey was very active in historical and genealogical groups, like the D.A.R. In 1932, the sisters changed the entrance to the house from West Main Street to Grove Hill. After Frances Whittlesey’s death, the house was converted for use as offices.

First United Church of Christ Congregational, Milford (1824)

The First Church of Christ in Milford was established in New Haven in 1639 by a group of settlers led by Rev. Peter Prudden. They had already acquired land in Wepawaug, where they would shortly settle and establish the new parish and colony of Milford. The first meeting house was built in 1641 and was replaced by a second structure in 1727-1728. The current church, was built in 1824. Designed by David Hoadley, it has similarities to two earlier churches he designed: United Church on the Green in New Haven and Avon Congregational Church. A division in church membership during the Great Awakening in 1741 led to the errection of the Second Church (Plymouth Church). The two churches reunited in 1961 as the First United Church of Christ (Congregational).

Eells-Stow House (1700)

Samuel Eells settled in Milford in the later seventeenth century and owned property on Wharf Lane. He later settled in Hingham, Massachusetts and his son, Col. Samuel Eells, inherited the land in Milford, which later passed to his widowed third wife and then to Nathaniel Eells, his son by his second wife. Nathaniel, who lived in Middletown, sold the Milford property to Stephen Stow, the brother of his late wife. Stow, the captain of a coastal schooner, married Freelove Baldwin around 1751. He died in 1777 during the Revolutionary War while nursing 200 American prisoners of war suffering from smallpox, who had been cast off from a British prison ship. Four of Stow‘s sons also served in the war. The Eells-Stow House on Wharf Lane was once believed to date to the later seventeenth century, but is now thought to have been built c.1700-1720. The house was saved from destruction by the Freelove Baldwin Stow Chapter of the D.A.R. in 1930 and has since been preserved as a museum by the Milford Historical Society. The house underwent an extensive restoration in 1981-1982, which included the replacement of the later sash windows with the earlier type of diamond-pane casement windows.

Thomas Buckingham House (1640)

Thomas Buckingham was one of the original planters who settled Milford in 1639. The Buckingham House, on North Street in Milford, is said to have been built around 1640. The house, however, does not have the appearance of a First-Period seventeenth century house because it was remodeled after Jehiel Bryan, who married Esther Buckingham, acquired it in 1753. Capt. Jehiel Bryan, who served in the Revolutionary War, later built the Bryan-Downs House in Milford.