Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Vernacular

Goodwin Schoolhouse (1821)

Goodwin One Room Schoolhouse, East Hartford

The Goodwin Schoolhouse in East Hartford was built in 1821 by George Goodwin, Jr., a paper manufacturer. He built the school on his own property on Burnside Avenue and hired a teacher to teach his own children and those of his neighbors. A one room schoolhouse, the building was used as a school until 1855, when the students started attending town schools. The former school was moved to Martin Park in 1975 as a gift to the town from George Goodwin, grandson of the original builder. It is open as a museum operated by the Historical Society of East Hartford.

Wolcott Institute (1857)

The house at 180 South Street in Litchfield was originally (from 1857-1859) home to a boarding school for boys called the Wolcott Institute. The school was founded by Rev. Charles H. Seymour, who departed the following year. A listing for the school in 1859 indicated that its most recent rector, Rev. D. G. Wright, had resigned and the vacancy had not been filled. The school ceased operations that year.

Enfield Shaker Village Meeting House (1827)

Earlier this month I featured buildings at the Hancock Shaker Village on my site Historic Buildings of Massachusetts. Connecticut also had a Shaker village. It was located in Enfield, but not nearly as many of its buildings have survived and they have been restored as they have at Hancock. On this site, I’ve already featured the South Family Residence and the adjacent laundry, ice house and dairy. The Enfield Shaker community grew to include five “families.” Besides the South Family, there were the North, East and West Families and, centrally located, was the Church Family. The first to be organized, the Church Family had overall control over the entire Enfield Shaker settlement. The last Enfield Shakers left the area in 1917. The State of Connecticut purchased the former Shaker property in 1931 for what is now the Enfield Correctional Institution. One of only two buildings to survive from the Church Family is the former Meeting House/Trustee House. Built in 1827, the building had an open meeting hall for the entire community and (perhaps later?) housed the Trustees, who handled the community‘s dealings with the outside world. Shakers were associated with reform movements, such as abolitionism: Sojourner Truth once spoke at the Meeting House.

Enfield Shaker Village: South Family Residence (1852)

The Shaker community in Enfield (not to be confused with the Shakers of Enfield, New Hampshire) was established in 1792 and survived until 1917. 100 buildings were once a part of the Enfield Shaker Village, of which only 15 survive today. Living communally, the Shakers in Enfield grew to include five family complexes. The residence building of the South Family, on Cybulski Road, survives today. It is a three and a half story brick building with a wooden belfry. It has been converted into a private residence. There are other adjacent surviving Shaker buildings. (more…)

Huntley-Brown House (1795)

Gurdon Clark built the Huntley-Brown House on the Boston Post Road in Laysville in Old Lyme around 1795. Matthew Peck purchased the house in 1808 and sold it to William B. Tooker in 1827. Marvin Huntley, Jr. (1800–1886) bought the house a year later and it remained in the Huntley family for over a century. In 1959, architect Jane Carter and her daughter-in-law Sue McCloud Carter purchased the house and moved it to a lot near the Florence Griswold House. Mrs. John Crosby Brown, President of the Lyme Society, acquired the house in 1974 to serve as a home for the Society’s Director. It was later converted to administrative offices and is still on the grounds of the Florence Griswold Museum.

Smedley and Sturges Storehouse (1772)

Old storehouse in Black Rock, Bridgeport

In the post-Revolutionary War era, the Upper Wharves at Brewster Street were the commercial center of the trading port of Black Rock in Bridgeport. The oldest surviving storehouse from that period is at 51 Brewster Street. Built in 1772, it has been greatly altered since then. It was built by the partners Samuel Smedley and Samuel Sturges. Both men were patriots during the Revolutionary War, Smedley being a prominent privateer. Later used as a residence, the old storehouse was purchased by the Fayerweather Yacht Club in 1937 to become their clubhouse.

Canton Town Hall (1908)

A two-story building with Gothic Revival windows and a Doric columned entry porch (on the right in the image above) was built in 1908 on Market Street in Collinsville to serve as the Town Hall of Canton. The town hall later expanded into a much larger nineteenth-century building next door on Main Street (the large building in the image above). It was originally a commercial structure that had stores at street level and offices above.