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.

F. A. Hull Building (1907)

In 1843, Charles Hull started a hardware store in Danbury that went under several names over the years: from 1860 to 1890 it was known as Hull & Rogers and it was later called Hull Brothers. Over the years the company’s home near the corner of Main and Liberty Streets was twice burned down. After the second fire in 1906, Frederick Hull hired the Bridgeport architects Meloy & Beckwith to design a new building. To avoid further destruction by fire the building was constructed of brick, reinforced concrete and steel. Completed in 1907, the building became home to the store under its new name, F. A. Hull & Son. Located at 181-183 Main Street in Danbury, the building has a distinctive multi-colored pressed brick facade on the third floor. A gymnasium on that floor was used until 1924 as Danbury High School’s gym (in the 1890s the High School was located on the third floor of the Union Savings Bank). The store was incorporated as the Hull Hardware & Plumbing Company in 1919.

There was also a firm called F. A. Hull & Co. which was a manufacturer of steel machinery and machinists’ tools in Danbury. The company, which produced such products as the Danbury Universal Jaw Drill Chuck, was controlled in the 1870s and 1880s by the machine firm of Hull, Belden & Co, established by Major Russell Albert Belden of New Haven. After a fire destroyed the company’s plant in Danbury in 1888, Belden retuned to New Haven, where he started the Belden Machine Co. It seems that F. A. Hull & Co. continued as a a wholesale hardware firm, although that may have been a reference to the separate F. A. Hull & Son.

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Bedford Building (1923)

From as early as 1799 through the 1920s a hotel stood at the corner of Main Street, Church Lane and State Street/Post Road East in Westport. In 1923 the old Westport Hotel was replaced by a large Tudor Revival-style structure donated by Edward T. Bedford (1849-1931) to serve as the town’s first Y.M.C.A. building. Bedford, who grew up in Westport in modest circumstances and eventually became an executive of Standard Oil, remembered in his youth standing outside the windows of the hotel, watching a game of pool or billiards, but being unable to enter on account of the hotel’s saloon. Years later he wanted to donate a place where local boys and young men could congregate safely. The Bedford Building remained the home of the Y.M.C.A. for ninety years, eventually expanding to occupy space in the adjoining firehouse as well, until it moved to a new facility in 2014. Its original home was then transformed to became part of a substantial new mixed-use development (retail, dining and residential) called Bedford Square. The historic Tudor Revival facade was maintained, but the rear and basements of the property were significantly altered. Later 1977 additions to the Y.M.C.A. were replaced with historically sensitive new construction. Anthropologie & Co. moved in as the anchor tenant for the 40,000-square-foot Bedford Building.

Broad Brook Hotel (1840)

The three-story gambrel-roofed building at 98 Main Street in the village of Broad Brook in East Windsor was built in 1840. Its gable-end faces the street and has a two-level front porch with columns. When it was erected, the building was known as Hubbard’s Hotel. It was later called the Broad Brook Hotel and was owned by the Broad Brook Company. The upper floors contained guest rooms and dining facilities, with an auditorium on the third floor. The ground floor housed businesses, such as a harness shop and possibly a tin store. Other tenants over the years included the Broad Brook Library and a U. S. Post Office. In 1956 the building became the Masonic Hall of Oriental Lodge No. 111. Their previous lodge at E. W. Pigeon’s store had been wrecked in the Flood of 1955. The Lodge later moved to South Windsor.

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Broad Brook Opera House (1892)

The neighborhood of Broad Brook in the town of East Windsor was once a mill village for the Broad Brook Company, which manufactured textiles from 1849 to 1854. In 1892 the company erected the building at the corner of Main and Depot Streets, next to the Broad Brook Dam. The building had a company salesroom and shipping department on the first floor and a public hall, called the opera house, on the top floor which was used for community events. After the company moved its departments out in 1920 the first floor was used for retail stores. The Opera House on the second floor continues to host live shows today.

George H. Stone & Co. (1850)

George H. Stone & Co. General Store

One of the historic buildings at Mystic Seaport represents a nineteenth-century general store called George H. Stone & Co. The objects on exhibit were donated by George H. Stone, a retired merchant from North Stonington who had his own collection of historical items. The building itself was originally erected circa 1850 as a house in Pawcatuck. It was acquired by the museum in 1954.

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