Dr. Davis S. Brooks House (1790)

2864-Long-Hill-David-S-Brooks-1790

The house at 2864 Long Hill Road in North Guilford was built in 1790. It was the home of Dr. David S. Brooks. He married Annis Benton (b. 1764). Dr. Brooks delivered “An eulogy on the Death of George Washington,” at Guilford on February 22, 1800. The eulogy was published in New York in 1823. A facsimile of the only known copy of this work was reprinted by the Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford in 1920. Dr. Brooks later moved to New York, where he died in January, 1826. His son, David B. Brooks, graduated from Yale and practiced medicine in Cromwell starting in 1819. He also later moved to New York where he died in 1830.

Platt Farmhouse (1769)

Platt Farmhouse

The country farmhouse at 189 Platt Road in Watertown was built in 1769. The earliest known owner of the house is Jonas Platt of Newtown, who moved to Watertown around 1800. The house later passed from Jonas’ son Hinman to Hinman’s son Henry, who added the front porch and rear addition in the 1880s. His son Edgar Platt sold the farm to the Hresko family, which owned it until 1977. The farmland was then developed as the Winding Brook subdivision. After several years of corporate ownership, the house again became a private residence. On the property is an English bank barn, built c. 1870.

Lathrop-Mathewson-Ross House (1761)

Lathrop-Mathewson-Ross House

The Lathrop-Mathewson-Ross House is located on Ross Hill Road in Lisbon. It was built in 1761, possibly by Ezra Lathrop. Jeffery Mathewson acquired the property October 20, 1800. Almira J. Mathewson married George A. Ross, and their descendants owned the property until August 1958. Both Almira and then her daughter, Kate Mathewson Ross, kept diaries with daily entries covering 1873 to 1913. Victorian-era alterations were made to the house, including the addition of a projecting central gable over the front door and a full-length front porch. All of these additions were later removed under the direction of the famed restoration architect, Frederic Palmer. He worked with Edward Peace Friedland and Joan W. Friedland, who bought the Ross Farm in 1958. Edward Peace Friedland was an expert on eighteenth-century architecture and he and his wife were pioneers in historic preservation.

(more…)

Tomlinson-Boughton-Ward-Cassidy House (1763)

132 Main St S

The house at 132 Main Street South in Woodbury sits on a hill just south of School Street. It was built in 1763 by Isaac Tomlinson and was owned early in the nineteenth century by John Boughton, a blacksmith. His blacksmith shop is believed to make up part of the barn on the property. Wallace G. Ward, a builder and president of the Woodbury Savings Bank, later owned and made a number of changes to the house, including replacing the original center chimney and lowering the windows so that his mother could more easily look outside. Since 1916 the house has been owned by the Cassidy family, which undertook restoration work in the mid-twentieth century.