John Ventres, Jr. built his house in the Shailerville section of Haddam between 1805, when he and his brother Samuel first acquired the land, and 1812, around the time John married his second wife, Anne Shailer. Ventres died in 1884 and his third wife, Mabel, sold the house to John’s son George in 1896. The house remained in the family until 1907. The original large center chimney was at some point replaced by two smaller brick chimneys. (more…)
Set on a rise overlooking Route 6 is the Old Town Hall of Andover. Built in 1893, the wood-frame gable-front building is now the Museum of Andover History.
Louis’ Lunch, established in 1895 by Louis Lassen, is a landmark New Haven restaurant where tradition holds that the first hamburger was served in 1900. Initially housed in a wagon, the restaurant was later added to a tannery building, where it remained into the 1970s. Threatened with demolition when the Temple Medical Center was being planned, Louis’ building was saved and moved to its current home on Crown Street in 1975. Friends and supporters sent bricks from all over the world to aid in the building’s reconstruction. Louis’ Lunch still uses broilers that date back to 1898 and the burgers are still served on bread (not buns) and ketchup and mustard are forbidden.
Possibly built by Edwin Fitch, the Hartung-Trumbull House in Mansfield Center dates to around 1835. John Hartung, wagon-maker and town postmaster, owned the property until 1845. From 1859 to 1894, it was the home of Eunice M. Swift Trumbull, wife of William Trumbull. The Catalog of the Officers and Students of Talladega College, published in 1905, lists “The Eunice M. Swift Trumbull Scholarship of $500, established in 1895, by devise of Mrs. Trumbull, of Mansfield, Conn.” Talladega College, in Talladega, Alabama, is that state’s oldest historically black private liberal arts college, founded in 1867.
Formerly the schoolhouse of Wethersfield‘s West Hill District, the one-room school called the “Little Red Schoolhouse” was built in 1869 and still displays its two separate front entrances, one for boys and one for girls. The building was later used by the Wethersfield Police Department and is now home to the Wethersfield Art League.
The Tantaquidgeon Museum, on the Norwich-New London Turnpike in Uncasville (in Montville), is the oldest Native American owned and operated Indian museum in America. The Museum‘s stone building was built in 1931 by three members of the Mohegan Tribe: John Tantaquidgeon, who was blind in one eye and on crutches, with his son, Chief Harold Tantaquidgeon, and daughter Gladys Tantaquidgeon. Dr. Gladys Iola Tantaquidgeon (1899-2005) was a Mohegan Medicine Woman who wrote A Study of Delaware Indian Medicine Practice and Folk Beliefs (1942), later reprinted as Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians. She also did social and economic development work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. The Tantaquidgeon House and the Museum building were recently acquired by the Mohegan Tribe. In 2008, the Museum, which contains objects made by Mohegans and members of other Native American tribes, was reopened after renovations.
The building which now houses the Middle Haddam Public Library was originally built as a store by Cyrus Bill and Daniel Tracy. Tracy was a master carpenter who also owned a shipyard. He soon left the partnership and was replaced by Seth Overton. The gambrel-roofed structure continued as a commercial establishment until 1825 and then became a residence. In 1908, it was donated by Delia Rounds to the library committee.
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