Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Architectural Style

Cheney Firehouse (1901)

The Cheney family of silk manufacturers had a firehouse constructed on Pine Street in Manchester in 1901 to house the South Manchester Fire District‘s Hose & Ladder Company No. 1, which served the Cheneys’ silk mills and the surrounding neighborhoods. At that time, the Cheney Fire Station relied on the latest horse-drawn equipment. The Cheneys later sold the building, which is now owned by the town of Manchester. Since 1979, it has been rented to the Connecticut Firemen’s Historical Society, who operate the Fire Museum in the building.

The Congregational Church in South Glastonbury (1836)

The Congregational Church in South Glastonbury was constructed on High Street in 1836 by 14 members of Glastonbury’s First Church. After the Great Hurricane of 1938, the other two Congregational churches in town had to be rebuilt, so South Church is the oldest surviving Congregational church in town. The building was raised and turned to face Main Street in 1965. (more…)

Julius Gay House (1860)

Julius Gay, a president of the Farmington Savings Bank, was also a historian of the town. His Gothic Revival-style house on Main Street, built in the 1860s or 1870s, was left to Miss Porter’s School in his daughter Florence’s will in 1952.

Dr. Erastus Cooke House (1855)

The Dr. Erastus Cooke House, on Main Street in Wethersfield, was built in 1855 and features a hipped roof.

Edit (7/13/08): According to an April 2008 draft of the Old Wethersfield Master Plan (available as a pdf file), “Within the village center of Wethersfield, Dr. Erastus Cooke operated a chemical factory making dyes, saltpeter, and medicines on Chemical Lane.”

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Dr. Eli Todd House (1798)

A 1717 farmhouse, on Main Street in Farmington, was purchased in 1798 and enlarged by Dr. Eli Todd. He had been educated at Yale and settled in Farmington to practice medicine, setting up a hospital for patients with smallpox. Later moving to Hartford, he became a pioneer in the field of psychiatry. He was the principal founder of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, now known as the Institute of Living, and became its first superintendent, serving until his death in 1833. His house in Farmington would have other owners, including Alfred Pope, who bought the house in 1899 and lived here while his new home, Hill-Stead, was being constructed nearby. Pope made additional alterations to the house in the Colonial-Revival style.

Asahel Nettleton House (1810)

In 1810, cigar-maker Nathaniel Rockwell, Jr. built a center-chimney house on Main Street in East Windsor Hill. Later facing debt, he sold the house in 1835 to Asahel Nettleton, who updated the house in the Greek Revival style. Nettleton, a minister and evangelist was a prominent figure of the Second Great Awakening. He participated in the New Lebanon Conference of 1827, where he and fellow Yale-graduate Lyman Beecher opposed the teachings of Charles Finney. In East Windsor Hill, he helped to found the Theological Institute of Connecticut and contributed proceeds from his volume of Village Hymns for Social Worship to help endow a professorship. Nettleton died in 1844, having willed his estate to the seminary, which later moved to Hartford. Nettleton’s colleague and East Windsor Hill neighbor, seminary professor and president Bennett Tyler, compiled a collection of Nettleton’s works and wrote a Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Asahel Nettleton, D.D.

Elisha Wadsworth House (1828)

Built in 1828, the Elisha Wadsworth House served as an inn for travelers on the Albany Turnpike until 1862. Originally facing north on the Turnpike (now Albany Avenue), it was rotated 90 degrees to face west, on Prospect Avenue, in 1918. Update: After years of neglect (during which original woodwork was destroyed after a water-pipe burst), the house was thoroughly renovated in 2013.