Lucius Chapman House (1834)

Lucius Chapman House

The Lucius Chapman House, at 87 Maple Street in Ellington, was built in 1834. It has a later Italianate entrance porch. As related in “Ellington, ” by Alice E. Pinney (The Connecticut Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 2, 1898):

About the beginning of the present century the business of the town changed its location again to a point on the old turnpike a mile east of the present center, near the junction with the road leading to Stafford, where a thriving store was kept in an old red gambrel-roofed house by Dr. James Steele of Tolland. Although he bore the professional title of doctor, he is recorded as being a merchant and a farmer. He died in 1819. Lucius Chapman is said to have kept the store from 1825 until 1856. when he sold out and went West and the place was abandoned for store purposes.

As noted by Henry Willey in Isaac Willey of New London, Conn., and His Descendants (1888), Rebecca Willey, daughter of Asa and Rebecca Wass Willey, was born in 1798 and in 1830 married

Lucius Chapman, a merchant of Ellington, Conn. They removed to Illinois, and were living there in 1861.

John Smith House (1742)

163 Main Street, Farmington

John Smith built the house at 163 Main Street in Farmington in 1742. He sold it to John Hart, but repurchased it from Hart in 1750-1751. It was then acquired by Dr. Elisha Lord in April 1751, who resided there until 1762. He served in the French and Indian War, as mentioned in Proceedings of the Connecticut Medical Society (1863):

Dr. Elisha Lord, son of Cyprian and Elizabeth (Backus) Lord, was born Aug. 10, 1726. He located first at Farmington, but subsequently returned to Norwich. After accompanying the troops sent against Crown Point, he was appointed, May, 1758, surgeon to the first regiment. In this capacity, and as director of hospital stores, he served till Dec. 22, 1760. He died at the age of forty-two.

Stephen Dorchester and Elizabeth Gould Dorchester lived in the house from 1762 to 1786. The house then passed through a succession of other owners. It was a property of the Wilcox family from 1845 to 1910. The Root family owned and leased the property between 1915 and 1963, at some point moving the house back from the street and converting it into a duplex.

Storrs L. Hubbard House (1856)

Storrs L. Hubbard House

The house at 110 Maple Avenue in Higganum in Haddam is a transitional Greek Revival/Italianate structure. It was built in 1856 by Storrs (sometimes spelled Stores and Storris) Lee Hubbard on land he had acquired the previous year. Born in 1825, Hubbard, a farmer, was the son of Stephen Hubbard and Sarah Johnson Hubbard. In 1846 he married Martha Ely. In 1894, Hubbard left $3,600 to the Middlesex County Orphans’ Home. It was used to pay off the mortgage of a house the Home had bought on Wyllys Avenue in Middletown c. 1890.