Today is the Eleventh Anniversary of Historic Buildings of Connecticut! Pictured above is the house at 2 Jackson Avenue in Mystic. Built in 1882, its design was influenced by the popular Eastlake style. It was the home of of Francis Manning, a banker, and his wife Ann.
An article last Spring (April 24, 2017) in the Newtown Bee [“New Owner Brings New Life To 40 Main Street,” by Kendra Bobowick] notes the recent renovation of an 1893 Queen Anne-style Victorian house. Around 1905, Charles H. Northrop, town treasurer, lived in the house. He was accused of embezzlement and hung himself in the house’s foyer. From 1910 into the 1920s, the house was used by the local telephone exchange. The house was used as a law office from the 1940s through 2001.
Guilford Smith (1839-1923), who left his childhood home in South Windham to become a library, built his own house nearby in 1877. Located at 9 Main Street, it is an elaborately decorated Victorian residence. According to a biography of Smith in Legislative History and Souvenir of Connecticut, Vol. VII (1910):
Guilford Smith, of Windham, who was horn in South Windham. May 12, 1839, is the son Charles and Mary A. Smith, and is descended from Governor William Bradford of the Mayflower colony. He was educated in the public schools of his native town and at Hall’s School at Ellington. When nineteen years of age, he entered the office of Smith, Winchester & Co., as a clerk, passing through all the departments. Upon the death of his father, he succeeded him, being now president and treasurer of the now The Smith. Winchester Mfg. Co. He is also president of the Windham National Bank of Willimantic, a director of the New London and Northern Railway, and president of St. Joseph’s Hospital, Willimantic. On December 16, 1863, Mr. Smith married Mary Ramsdall. daughter of Thomas and Mary Elizabeth (Lathrop) Ramsdall. He is one of the leading citizens of South Windham, is active in church and civil affairs, has represented his town in the General Assembly in 1883, and filled various local official stations. He is a member of the Ecclesiastical Society of the Congregational Church, whose house of worship was built chiefly at his expense. He is also a member of the Society of Mayflower descendants. He faithfully served as a member of the Committee on Banks [in the State Assembly].
Henry Wooster Webber (1866-1911) was a superintendent at Comstock, Cheney & Company in Ivotyton, a position his father, Lorenzo Dow Webber (1833-1905), had held for thirty years. H. Wooster Webber later also served on the board of directors of the company. He married Bessie Wright in 1893. Her father, Alfred Mortimer Wright, led the Connecticut Valley Manufacturing Company in Centerbrook. Webber’s house at 81 Main Street in Ivoryton was built in 1896, next to his father’s house. He later moved his family to Hartford because of the high reputation of the city’s public schools. Then he would reside during the week in Ivoryton and spend his weekends with his family in Hartford. The family also had a summer home in Westbrook. Webber died in 1911 and after his widow’s death in 1920, the house in Ivoryton was inhereted by their son L. D. Webber, who lost the house eighteen years later when he went bankrupt.
In 1850, the New London, Willimantic and Palmer Railroad Company erected a train depot near what is now 14 Tolland Turnpike in Willington. The rail line became part of the Central Vermont Railway in 1871. The original depot burned down in 1894 and was replaced that same year by a new train station/freight depot building. The station/depot was originally called the Tolland Station, because nearby Tolland was the county seat. It was later renamed the Tolland & Willington Station, and then the West Willington Station. By 1947 the station had closed and was then used by the Ruby Lumber Company until it was renovated to become a branch of the Savings Bank of Tolland in 1976. The bank moved to a new location at Phelps Way in Willington in 1988 and took with it a collection of train memorabilia, donated over the years by local residents. In 2016, by which time it was a branch of First Niagara (it’s now KeyBank), the bank donated the collection of 22 objects to the Willington Historical Society.
Now a restaurant and inn, the former residence at 46 Main Street in Ivoryton (one of the three villages in the Town of Essex) was built in 1889 by Archibald Welsh Comstock (1860-1940). His father, Samuel Merritt Comstock (1809-1878), had founded the S.M. Comstock Company, which manufactured ivory products such as piano keys, billiard balls, dominoes and combs (thus giving Ivoryton its name). After Archibald Comstock’s death in 1940, his estate passed to his wife. The house was sold in 1954 and soon became a restaurant called the Johnny Cake Inn. The Inn was forced into foreclosure in 1966, but in 1972 it was acquired by Robert and Jo McKenzie, who reopened it as the Copper Beach Inn, named for the large tree at the entrance to the property. The business has continued under various owners over the years. It closed for a time in 2013 after another foreclosure, but soon reopened under new ownership. Sadly, the Inn lost its namesake tree earlier this year — taken down after it was discovered its center was rotting due to a fungal disease.
Adventists began meeting in the Town of Prospect about 1850 and in 1886 built a chapel on the Green. As described by J.L. Rockey in his History of New Haven County (1892):
The Adventist chapel, at the Center, which is a small but not unattractive frame building, affords a place of worship for members of that faith. It was built within the past six years. The meetings previous to that time were held in private houses, at “Rag Hollow” and other localities. Moses Chandler was one of the most active in the latter movement to give the denomination a permanent place in the town, and the meetings were for a time held at his house. Other members belong to the Tuttle, Tyler, Hotchkiss and Beecher families. In 1890 there were about a score of members, and Seth Woodruff was the minister.
About 1900 the Prospect congregation merged with an Adventist church in Waterbury. Their former chapel, located at 10 Center Street, became the Chapel school house and then the Prospect Senior Center.
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