The house at 101 Palisado Avenue in Windsor was built in 1755 for Rev. William Russell, who in 1754 had become the minister of the town’s First Congregational Church. It remained in a private home until it was purchased in the 1950s to become a rectory for the First Church. (more…)
An excellent example of Art Deco style architecture, the Polish National Home, on Charter Oak Avenue in Hartford, was completed in 1930. Together with SS. Cyril and Methodius Church, it was once at the center of Hartford’s Polish community. Although that community has since dispersed throughout the Greater-Hartford area, the Polish National Home continues to serve the region’s Polish-Americans. An informative article from the Hartford Courant provides interesting background information on this historyczna budowla stanu Connecticut.
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What is now known as the Ebenezer Plummer House was originally built in 1750 by Dr. Elizur Hale, who ended up not being able to afford the house he had built on Main Street in Glastonbury. He sold it to Ebenezer Plummer, a successful merchant. Plummer moved to Glastonbury from Boston in the 1750s and his house displays some architectural features perhaps more common to eastern Massachusetts than to the Connecticut River Valley. Plummer was a town leader during the Revolutionary War. The house was moved to its current location in on Main Street in 1947, when Douglas Road was constructed connecting to Main Street at the home’s original site. Post Edited 5/27/08.
The oldest House in Glastonbury was built in 1649, by Lt. John Hollister, and originally stood on the bank of the Connecticut River. Due to frequent flooding, it was moved to its current location, on Tryon Street, near Roaring Brook, in 1721. The rear lean-to, added around 1830, gave the house a saltbox shape. Hollister probably did not live in this house himself, as he maintained his main residence in Wethersfield, across the river. Instead, he rented it to three tenants, the brothers Josiah, Jonathan and John Gilbert, who farmed his land on the east side of the river. Hollister’s descendants would later make the house their ancestral home for many generations.
The Hartford neighborhood of Asylum Hill got its name from the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, which was founded there in 1817. A century later, the organization changed its name to the American School for the Deaf and moved to West Hartford. Its Hartford property was purchased by the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, which had been founded in 1810. This firm was the first of many to leave downtown Hartford and build a new headquarters in Asylum Hill. The headquarters of the company, which is now known as The Hartford Financial Services Group, was constructed in 1921 in a Classical Revival style, designed by Stevenson & Dodge, with Parker, Thomas & Rice.
Built around 1752, on Washington Street in Middletown by Jeremiah Wetmore, on property that had once been part of the 1670 land grant to Rev. Samuel Stow, the town’s first minister. The house was purchased by Jehosaphat Starr in 1756, who enlarged the original central chimney home with an addition to the east elevation. This was done to accommodate his large family, which eventually grew to 14. Starr, a Major during the Revolutionary War, was married to Sarah Stow, who was a great-grand niece of Rev. Samuel Stow. The house remained in the family until 1851.
The building on High Street in Glastonbury, which is currently the home of the South Glastonbury Public Library, was originally built in 1828 as a Methodist Church. Constructed by Parley Bidwell, who also built Glastonbury’s first Town Hall, the church had separate entrances for men and women. In the 1860s, the building was used as an unofficial African-American church and anti-slavery rallies were held there. By 1910, the local cotton mills had closed and the Methodist congregation had greatly decreased. The building was sold and used only for summer services until 1927, when the South Glastonbury Library first opened. At that time, the building was owned by Mrs. Helen Walsh Thompson, who allowed it to be used as a library for a nominal fee until 1941, when she gave it to the South Glastonbury Library Association.
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