H.R. & W. Bringhurst Drugstore and Doctor’s Office (1953)

Bringhurst Drugstore
Bringhurst Drugstore

Mystic Seaport recreates a drugstore of the period 1870-1885 in a building the museum erected in 1953. A small recreated doctor’s office adjoins the drugstore building. The store is named for the Binghurst family of pharmacists, which began with Joseph Bringhurst (1767-1834), who operated a drugstore in Wilmington, Delaware. The Bringhurst collection was given to Mystic Seaport by Smith, Kline & French Laboratories, which had acquired it after the store closed. The building also contains the Abram P. Karsh collection of pharmaceutical items from the Philadelphia area.

Boardman School, Mystic Seaport (1765)

Boardman School

The Boardman School at Mystic Seaport is a one room schoolhouse that was originally built in the town of Preston. It may date to as early as 1765 (or c. 1840) and was named for the Boardman family whose land was adjacent to the schoolhouse. When the section of Preston called Glasgo, where the school was located, became the separate town of Griswold in 1815, Boardman School became District Seven School (it was also known as Potter Hill School). It served as a school until 1949, when it was moved to Mystic Seaport.

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Porter Gristmill House (1790)

The historic Porter Gristmill, which started operation in 1740 under the original mill operator Ebenezer Fuller, is located along Jeremy Brook at the west end of the Hebron Center Historic District. The original millworks were later moved to Old Sturbridge Village, where the millstones and other parts are now located in the village‘s 1938 Gristmill building. One of the surviving mill buildings, at 55 West Main Street in Hebron, is the miller’s house (pictured above), which was erected in 1790. The house’s front façade is one story, while the rear is three stories.

Old Lyme Historical Society (1910)

The building at 55 Lyme Street in Old Lyme originally stood on Maple Lane, near the Lieutenant River, where it was built for the Old Lyme Gun Club. It was erected sometime before 1910 (according to different sources in 1885 or 1906) when it was purchased by the Old Lyme Grange #162, which had been founded in 1905. Women had organized the Grange Aid Society to raise funds to buy the building, but because it was located on leased property they continued to save money while seeking land to purchase. In 1928, when the lot at 55 Lyme Street became available, the women of the Grange Aid Society bought it (against the advice of the men). The building was then moved by a team of oxen to its current location, where it was enlarged and refurbished. The new hall was dedicated in February 1929. For decades it hosted various events for the Grange and for the community. The Old Lyme Historical Society, formed in 2005, purchased the Grange building in 2014 as its headquarters, providing a space for the town’s archives, artifacts and historical exhibits.

Gurleyville Grist Mill (1830)

On the Fenton River, near the village of Gurleyville in the town of Mansfield is a historic stone gristmill. Built in the 1830s of local stone, including garnetiferous schist, gneiss, granite, pegmatite and quartzite, it replaced the original mill on the site, built in 1749 by Benjamin Davis, who had also constructed a dam. Samuel Cross, father of Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross, was the miller for many years in the nineteenth century. The mill was run by the Douda family from 1912 until it ceased operation in 1941. An attached sawmill, in operation since 1723, was destroyed by heavy snow in the early 1950s. The surviving gristmill has complete and perfectly preserved equipment from when it was last used. The Joshua’s Tract Conservation and Historic Trust (AKA Joshua’s Trust) purchased the property in 1979 and the Gurleyville Grist Mill is open to the public on a seasonal basis.

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J. Elms Building (1887)

The J. Elms Building is located at 60 Lyme Street in Old Lyme. According to the Old Lyme Historical Society Walking Tour brochure, the building dates to 1887. It was built by James Bugbee (possibly James Francis Bugbee?) as a house next to a storage building. In 1889 he converted it into his store, which he later deeded to his daughter and granddaughters, while he resided the rest of his life in a house abutting the store (which was known for many years as “Bugbee’s Store”). The store has had many owners over the years, including Elizabeth Griswold Whitley and her husband, Joseph.

Tabor-Burr House (1895)

The house at 222 Saybrook Road, in the Higganum section of Haddam, was built in 1895. It is a good example of a vernacular house that has applied Victorian-era decoration and an Eastlake style porch. Adella Tabor bought the land in 1893 and built the house two years later. In 1908, the house was inherited by two sisters, Ella Virginia Burr and Abby Burr, who both died in 1924. The house was then sold out of the family by their niece, Ruth A. Burr.