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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George E. Barrows House (1838)

The house at 15 Pearl Street in Middletown was built in either 1838 or 1839, at a time when the street was experiencing development as a neighborhood for the urban middleclass of tradespeople and small business owners. It was erected by George E. Barrows, who had a joiner’s shop on the property and may have contributed his skills to the construction. From 1851 to 1883, it was the home of Charles H. Pelton, a printer who had worked with Horace Greeley in New York. The house remained in the Pelton family until 1915.

Capt. Avery Brown House (1812)

The house at 11 Gravel Street in Mystic was built about 1812 by Capt. Avery Brown, who commanded the sloop Minerva. He also served as bos’n on the Hero, a 47-foot sloop that was built at the Packard Shipyard in Mystic as a costal trader and became a privateer and blockade runner during the War of 1812. Nathaniel Palmer of Stonington was captain of the vessel on a sealing voyage in 1820 when he discovered Antarctica. Next to Capt. Brown’s house is the John Fellows House at 13 Gravel Street, built c. 1827-1836. It is traditionally called the “spite house” because it was built out far enough into the street to spoil Capt. Brown’s view upriver.