Canton Center General Store (1830)

The building at 180 Cherry Brook Road in Canton Center originally stood on the bank of Cherry Brook where it was built in 1830 by Norman Case as a woodworking shop. A flood in 1870 destroyed the stone dam on which this and other manufacturing operations in the vicinity depended. In 1874, Giles Sisson converted the carpenter shop’s upper floor into a social hall. The following year, brothers Austin and Myron Skinner of Middletown were persuaded by Rev. D. B. Hubbard of Canton Center’s Congregational Church to open a general store on the ground floor. The store has had many owners over the last century and a half. In 1886, while it was owned by George Lamphier, Sr., the store was moved east from Cherry Brook to its current location along Cherry Brook Road.

Capt. John Brown House (1776)

The house at 37 West Road in Canton was built in 1776 by Capt. John Brown III (1728-1776) to replace his earlier log cabin that stood west of the current house. As related in the 1860 book The Public Life of Capt. John Brown, by James Redpath:

John Brown, the third, at the outbreak of the revolutionary war, was chosen Captain of the West Simsbury (now Canton) trainband; and, in the spring of 1776, joined forces of the continental army at New York. His commission from Governor Trumbull is dated May 23, 1776. After a service of two months’ duration, he fell a victim to the prevailing epidemic of the camp, at the age of 48 years. He died in a barn, attended only by a faithful subordinate, a few miles north of New York City, where the continental army was at that time encamped. His body was buried on the Highlands, near the western bank of the East River.

Capt. Brown’s youngest son Abiel, who continued to live in the house until his death in 1856, wrote the book Genealogical History, with Short Sketches and Family Records, of the Early Settlers of West Simsbury, now Canton, Conn. (1856). Abiel’s brother Owen moved to Torrington and was the father of abolitionist John Brown. The younger John Brown later moved a monument to his grandfather, that once stood in the lot across the street from the house across from the house in Canton, to his farm in North Elba, New York. Brown was executed in 1859 and he was buried on his New York farm where his grave is marked by the same stone.

The house in Canton has a modern ell, shown on the right in the image above.

Former Noank Jail (1913)

In 1850 a small square building was erected to serve as a temporary lock-up near where the railway Depot is located today in village of Noank in Groton. In 1913 the building was sold and moved to its current lot at 87 Main Street in Noank. It was then used for various purposes over the years, including a barbershop, a speakeasy, and an insurance office, before becoming a private residence. Additions over time have included a rear kitchen, side garage, and a back porch.

Allen Avery – Welcome Fidler House (1879)

Allen Avery (1838-1915) was a businessman in Mystic who was very active in the local community. He worked as a ship joiner before entering the undertaking business, later opening a furniture store and then engaging in the real estate. He is associated with several houses in Mystic, including his 1874 house on Pearl Street on the Groton side and a later house on East Main Street on the Stonington side. In about 1879 he also erected the building (pictured above) at 6 Pearl Street. It’s described in the National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the Mystic River Historic District as a “1 1/2-story cottage with roof of four gables, one in each direction,” as well as “Italianate solid brackets at the eaves returns of the front gable.” Also, “Window caps have small brackets.”

As related in the booklet The Mystic River Historical Society: Our First 40 Years (researched and written by Patricia M. Schaefer) the building was purchased in 1985 by Sandor Balint, first violinist
of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He and his wife Joyce, who was also a violinist, felt it was a good omen that the house had been owned in 1912 by a man named Welcome Fidler. According to Kelly Sullivan, Fidler was a carriage-maker from Woodville, Rhode Island, where he was the subject of frequent raids by the local authorities for running illegal saloons. He then relocated to the building on Pearl Street in Mystic, where he operated a lunch room and pool hall on the ground floor and lived upstairs. He had not left his old ways behind however, because in 1909 and again six years later, he was raided by the police, who seized quantities of whiskey.