Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Architectural Style

Col. George Foote House (1810)

Nut Plains is a section of Guilford, named for the abundant hazelnuts found there by early colonial settlers. Before the establishment of the Boston Post Road through Guilford, a seventeenth century thoroughfare crossed East River at Foote’s Bridge Road in lower Nut Plains, where one of the last unpaved sections of the original New York to Boston carriage road survives today. In this neighborhood is the house built in 1810-1811 by Col. George Foote. Although the house has an address of 829 Goose Lane, it’s front facade faces Foote’s Bridge Road. George Foote farmed on the property of his grandfather, General Andrew Ward, and replaced the old Ward farmhouse with his new Federal-style home. This earlier house once stood on the current site of the front yard of 829 Goose Lane and its history was linked to a number of notable individuals.

Colonel Andrew Ward IV purchased a farm in nut plains in 1740. He fought in the French and Indian War and was at the Siege of Fort Louisbourg. Col Ward‘s son, Andrew Ward V, was also at the battle, and later rose to the rank of general in the Revolutionary War. He inherited lands from his father and lived in the old farmhouse. His eldest daughter, Roxana, had married Eli Foote, who died leaving his widow penniless with ten children. Roxana and the children, one of whom was Col. George Foote, came to live on their grandfather Andrew Ward’s farm and the farmhouse came to be called “Castle Ward” by the children. Gen. Ward also laid out the the private Foote Cemetery at Sandy Knoll. The cultured Ward-Foote family hosted many guests, including the young poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and the Rev. Lyman Beecher, who married Gen. Ward’s granddaughter, named Roxana after her mother. Lyman and Roxana Foote Beecher‘s famous children included Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. After the death of her mother, the five-year-old Harriet Beecher was brought to stay at the Nut Plains farm by her aunt, Harriet Foote–the first of many happy visits there over the years.

Daniel Hand House (1878)

The Italianate house of Daniel Hand, at 47 Fair Street in Guilford, was built in 1878-1879 by the builders George W. Seward and Sons. Daniel Hand, born in Madison, was a businessman and philanthropist, who died in 1891 at the age of ninety. Please Read on to learn more about what happened to Hand during the Civil War and his act of generosity 25 years later:

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Frederick A. Weld House (1852)

In 1852, Guilford builder William Weld constructed an Italianate house (possibly based on a design by Henry Austin) on Boston Street for his brother, the whaling captain Frederick Alonzo Weld, who was captain of the Italy out of Greenport, Long Island. Capt. Weld died in 1893 and a memorial epitaph, written by Henry Pynchon Robinson, was published in Guilford Portraits (1907).

John B. Chittenden House (1814)

Possibly built earlier, the house of John Baldwin Chittenden, on Boston Street in Guilford, was updated with Federal-style additions, including a tripartite window (similar to that on the Deming-Standish House in Wethersfield) in 1814. In 1831-1832, Chittenden and his family, along with others from Guilford, moved to Illinois and settled near what is now Mendon in Adams County. Chittenden was a deacon in the Congregational Church and in 1833, in his new home in Illinois, the first Congregational Church in the state was organized. In 1834, Chittenden laid out the village of Guilford, now Mendon.

Pelatiah Leete House (1710)

Guilford was originally part of the New Haven colony and in 1661, the town granted the land now known as Leete’s Island to William Leete. He became governor of the colony and later became governor of Connecticut. The family built a number of houses on the property, but the oldest one to survive today was built by William Leete’s grandson, Pelatiah Leete (1681-1768) in 1709-1710. In 1781, during the Revolutionary War, the British raided Leete’s Island, burning a house and two barns, but were turned back by local citizens. Pelatiah Leete III‘s brother, Simeon Leete, who shared the house with him, was wounded in the skirmish and died in the house the following day. Built as a saltbox, with an integral lean-to, the house remained in the Leete family until 1929. Harry Glenn purchased the house in 1930 and his wife, Mrs. Dorothy Glenn, first president of the Guilford Keeping Society, operated an antiques shop and tearoom in the house in the 1930s. Later owners built the addition in 1980 and the house was recently restored.

Adam Stanton House (1789)

Adam Stanton moved from Rhode Island to Clinton during the Revolutionary War and operated a general store and salt distillery on his property. This land had earlier been the site of Reverend Abraham Pierson‘s house, built in 1694. It was there, from 1701 to 1707, that Rev. Pierson taught the first classes of the Collegiate School, which was later moved to Saybrook and then to New Haven, where it eventually became Yale University. Adam Stanton took down the Pierson House when he built his own house on the site in 1789-1791, using parts of the earlier structure in the construction of the new one. Today, the Stanton House is a museum of American antiques with almost all of the furnishings being original to the house.

Benjamin Bradley House (1860)

The Benjamin Bradley House, on Boston Street in Guilford, is an Italian-style villa built in 1860. Benjamin Bradley was the son of Benjamin Bradley and Juliana Leete. The house’s builder was William E. Weld, who also constructed the very similar house of Julie Labadie on Whitfield Street. It has been suggested the that house may have been designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin (see A Treasury of Guilford Places (2008), by Joel Eliot Helander, p. 270).