Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Commercial Buildings

114-116 Center Street, Wallingford (1896)

The architecturally interesting commercial/apartment building at 114-116 Center Street in Wallingford bears the date MDCCCXCVI.

Goodell-Lincoln General Store (1828)

The building at 46 Chaplin Street in Chaplin was erected c. 1828 as a general store, most likely by Isaac Goodell, who lived next door at 44 Chaplin Street and in 1835 sold his house to his brother Walter Goodell. The store was later owned by Allen Lincoln (1816-1882). According to Vol. II of A Modern History of Windham County, Connecticut (1920), edited by Allen’s son, Allen B. Lincoln:

The late Allen Lincoln, well known as a merchant in Chaplin and Willimantic during the years about 1850-1882, won an excellent reputation for square dealing, combined with Yankee thrift and shrewdness. In earlier life a farmer, he never really enjoyed it, and varied that life by occasional trips via stage and canal to New York State and Ohio, then the “far west” and there to trade in wools.

As noted in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Tolland and Windham Counties (1903):

In 1853 Mr. Lincoln removed to Chaplin village and opened a country store. About four years from this time he came to Willimantic, and opened a country store in what was then the principal part of the village (the corner of Bridge and Main streets), in the building occupied in after years by tenants. He retained the Chaplin store meanwhile, but finally he sold that out to his brother, Jared W. Lincoln, and cast his lot with the growing village of Willimantic, removing his family there in 1864.

Allen’s brother, Jared W. Lincoln, continued to run the store for about twenty years until he sold it to his son, Edgar S. Lincoln, who later moved to Waterbury. Jared Lincoln was postmaster of Chaplin from 1863 to 1901 and the store served as the community’s post office from 1828 until 1950.

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Atwater Cottage (1760)

Atwater Cottage is a gambrel-roofed house at 302 Christian Street on the campus of Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. It was built in 1760 and was used by Caleb Atwater, a wealthy merchant, as a store. He produced gunpowder in a barn behind the house and in 1775 George Washington purchased gunpowder from the store for his army. The building is now a faculty residence.

Seymour Antiques Company (1890)

The commercial building at 18-26 Bank Street in Seymour was built c. 1890. In 1913 it became home to the Seymour Furniture Company. It was later left vacant and threatened with demolition. Since 1994 it has been home to the Seymour Antiques Company, which was started by an architect couple who restored the building in phases, expanding the shop as renovations progressed.

Charles Mallory Sail Loft (1830)

Charles Mallory (1796-1882) was born in Waterford and learned sail making in New London as an apprentice to his brother-in-law, Nathan Beebe. In 1816 Mallory came to Mystic, where he soon set up his own sail loft. In 1836 he retired from sail making to focus on his fishing, whaling and shipping interests. His descendants would continue as an important shipping and shipbuilding family. Mallory had a sail making loft on the third floor of a building on Holmes Street in Mystic that he constructed circa 1830. All three floors were used for a variety of purposes over the years. In 1951 the building was brought upriver by barge to its current location at Mystic Seaport. The top floor has a sail loft exhibit, the middle floor has a ship rigging loft exhibit and the bottom floor has a ship chandlery exhibit. (more…)

Orrin Preston Store (1840)

The building at 171 East Plymouth Road in East Plymouth was built c. 1840-1860 as a house and store by merchant Orrin Preston. The store, which also used space in the back of the old Scoville House next door at 175 East Plymouth Road, was in operation through the end of the nineteenth century.

Yale-Beach Building (1900)

The Yale-Beach building, on the left in the image above, is a commercial structure at 143-149 Main Street in downtown Seymour. Built in 1900-1901, the building had a Masonic Hall, which became home to Morning Star Lodge No. 47 in 1901. The building on the right (151-13 Main Street), was built in 1902.