Josiah Kimberly House (1827)

Josiah Kimberly House

The house at 144 East Plymouth Road in East Plymouth was built c. 1800. From 1827 to c. 1860 it was owned by Josiah Kimberly, a tanner and shoemaker. Kimberly took over the tannery business begun in East Plymouth by the Gaylord and Tuttle families. His son Eber E. Kimberly would continue in his father’s trade. Located at 148 East Plymouth Road is the house built c. 1870 by Eber’s son, Frederick Kimberly. As described in Francis Atwater’s History of the Town of Plymouth, Connecticut (1895):

The elder Cyrus Gaylord above alluded to, at one time also did carding in a building near the dam now standing on the same stream a short distance from his house, Josiah Kimberly at the same time using a part of the building for a tannery.

Somewhat later Mr. Kimberly had a tannery on the same stream between the grist mill and Stephen Blake’s. This tannery was afterwards conducted by Eber Kimberly.

Rev. Joseph Ayer House (1825)

Rev. Joseph Ayer House

Reverend Joseph Ayer (1793-1875) was pastor of the Congregational Church in North Stonington from 1825 to 1837. Sometime during that period his house, located at 94 Main Street, was built. He then moved to Sprague where he became minister of the Hanover Congregational Church. North Stonington village was once known as Milltown and as related in his obituary in The Congregational Quarterly, Vol. XIX, No. 2 (April, 1877):

At the time he commenced his residence in Milltown, a village within the bounds of his parish, there were in that small village ten places in which intoxicating liquors were sold in larger or smaller quantities, — eight stores, and two taverns. Within a short time he was permitted to see them all closed, or cleansed of the fumes of alcohol, — an achievement hardly to be paralleled in the annals of the temperance reform.

Burwell Tavern – Thomas House (1785)

Burwell Tavern - Thomas House

Little is known about the origins of the house at 4 Southbury Road in Roxbury, which originally served as a tavern and stage-coah stop. It is said to have been built in 1785 by a man named Burwell. He may be identified with one of several men named Brothwell (a variant spelling of the same surname) who lived in Roxbury at the time [refer to Roxbury Place-Name Stories (2010) by Jeannine Green, p. 17 for more details]. In 1839 the building was purchased by the Thomas family who owned it for over a century. The most well known member of the family was Harvey Thomas (died 1894). He raised and sold horses. A nineteenth-century barn that survives on the property almost certainly served as his horse barn.

J. & E. Stevens Company (1843)

J. & E. Stevens Company

A group of buildings surviving from the J & E Stevens Company manufacturing complex can be found on the north side of Nooks Hill Road in Cromwell. The J. & E. Stevens Company was formed in 1843 by brothers John and Elisha Stevens. The company, which operated into the mid-twentieth century, is noted for its manufacture of cast iron toys, especially mechanical iron banks and cap pistols. On the left in the image above, at the corner of Shadow Lane, is the earliest surviving Stevens factory building, a white-painted brick structure, which later served as the main office building (it once had a cupola, since removed). The adjacent brick structures to the right were erected sometime later in the nineteenth century: the Assembly Building (white-painted brick, center) and the Pattern Shop (unpainted brick, right). Across Nooks Hill Road is the factory‘s former 1865 foundry building (not pictured), which has been much added to over the years. Other structures that were part of the complex have since been torn down. The buildings above are now home to Horton Brasses, 49 Nooks Hill Road.