Hotchkiss House (1819)

David Miles Hotchkiss (1787-1878) was an educator, civic leader, and abolitionist in the town of Prospect. In 1819-1820, his father, Frederick Hotchkiss, had erected a farmhouse for him at 61 Waterbury Road for a total cost of $660.99. David Hotchkiss operated a boarding school, called the Select Academy, on the house’s second floor. A member of the committee that named the town Prospect (for its high elevation) when it was incorporated in 1827 (the town was formed from the neighboring towns of Waterbury and Cheshire), Hotchkiss then served as a town selectman and in the state legislature. An abolitionist, he contributed to the creation of the Free Soil Party in Connecticut in 1848. The house was inherited by his tenth child, David Bryant Hotchkiss (1853-1903). The building was altered and enlarged over the years, with changes that included the replacement of the original large center chimney with a smaller one in the 1870s. At that same time the original front door was removed, but it was reused in the ell attached to the rear of the house. Three of David Bryant’s children, his son Treat (1888-1957) and two daughters, Ruth (1885-1978) and Mabel (1882-1966), never married and lived in the house until their deaths. The siblings left the house and surrounding property, which includes the Hotchkiss Farm, to their nieces, Nellie and Ruth Cowdell, who then sold it to the town of Prospect in 1980. Upon their deaths, the town received a bequest from the sisters towards the maintenance of the house, which is now the headquarters of the Prospect Historical Society.

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Nathan Seelye House (1775)

The house at 2 Chestnut Street in Bethel was built c. 1775. At some point it was acquired by Nathan Seelye (or Seeley), probably a few years after his marriage to Hannah Hawley in 1790. Born in Fairfield in 1766, Nathan Seelye was a farmer and a hatter whose business in Bethel was located at the corner of Wooster and Main Streets. Earlier, he had been a farmer in the Startfield section of Fairfield. A story about him is related in A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886), by Samuel Orcutt:

Nathan Seeley, when a young man, was a constable in Stratfield parish and had a writ to serve for a debt; and the law was at that time, such that the person on whom a writ was served must be touched with the paper to make the arrest legal. He rode a large, powerful horse, and found his man loading his cart with manure with a pitchfork. He told the constable to keep away and kept the fork raised for his defence. Upon this said Nathan put spurs to his horse and made him jump on the man so that he touched him with the writ. After having done that he had the power to call out the militia to make the arrest complete.

The house in Bethel continued to be occupied by his son, Isaac H. Seelye, who also had a hatting business. Isaac’s brother Seth was a merchant whose house is now the Bethel Public Library. Two of his sons became college presidents: Laurenus C. Seelye was president of Smith College from 1873 to 1910 and Julius Hawley Seelye was president of Amherst College from 1876 to 1890.

Philo Bevin House (1872)

The Second Empire-style house at 26 Barton Hill Road in East Hampton was built in 1872 by Philo Bevin, who was born in 1813 in the William Bevin House across the street. Philo was one of four brothers who ran the Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company, which helped transform East Hampton into Belltown, USA and still manufactures bells today. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903)

A man of high moral principles, Mr. Bevin sought to promote every work calculated to advance the mental and moral condition of mankind, as well as to further the material welfare of his town and State. He was closely identified with the work of the local Congregational Church, in which he acted successively as clerk and treasurer. Being a stanch supporter of temperance principles, his life was an ideal one in the line of proper living. Politically he was a Whig in early life, and promptly joined the Republican party upon its organization. At one time he represented his town in the Legislature.

The house remained in the Bevin family until 1971. Alice Conklin Bevin (1893-1969), Philo’s granddaughter, occupied the house in the 1940s. She was a well-known artist who painted murals in the house’s third-floor bathroom and in the property’s barn, which she used as a studio. In 2015, new owner Dean Brown began a major restoration of the house into a bed & breakfast called The Bevin House.

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Samuel Rice House (1770)

The house at 1200 Main Street in Glastonbury was built c. 1770 by Samuel Rice. His niece, Anna Cornwall (1778-1855), ran a school for girls in the house in the nineteenth century. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Cornwall, who operated a textile mill in Chatham. A number of nineteenth century samplers survive that share characteristics indicating they were all produced by Miss Cornwall’s students.

Courtlands (1892)

In about 1892, Mary Frances Clark Hoppin (1842–1934) built a mansion in Pomfret called Courtlands. She was the widow of Dr. Courtland Hoppin (1834–1876) of Providence, Rhode Island, and was the daughter of Joseph Washington Clark, a wealthy Boston investor, who had a summer home in Pomfret. She had earlier lived in a house she had built in Pomfret after her husband died. She later gave that home to the Pomfret School, where it is now Robinson House, the school’s admissions office. After her death, Courtlands became St. Robert’s Hall, a Jesuit monastery and seminary, dedicated in December 1935. Since 1974, the mansion and 114-acre estate have been home to the New England Laborers’ Training Academy, with an address of 37 Deerfield Road in Pomfret.

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Stephen H. White House (1847)

The Greek Revival house at 585 Main Street in Portland was built in the 1840s (possibly 1847). It was originally the home of Stephen H. White. This may be the Stephen H. White, son of George White, who is described in the Memorials of Elder John White (1860), by Allyn S. Kellogg, page 206 as

born in Portland, Dec. 15, 1820. He resides there, and is a farmer and carpenter.

He married twice, first in 1844 to Sarah Risley of Glastonbury (died 1846); second in 1850 to Almira W. Ufford of Portland.

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