Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Houses

Daniel Galpin House (1790)

The house at 914 Worthington Ridge in Berlin was built around 1790 for Deacon Daniel Galpin (1754-1744), a veteran of the Revolutionary War. In her History of Berlin (1916), Catherine M. North quotes a letter of Mrs. Margaret Dunbar Stuart describing the Deacon:

Deacon Daniel Galpin was brother to Col. Joseph Galpin and lived next door to Parson Goodrich, my grandfather. He was of a more ardent temperament than Col. Galpin. He spoke in prayer meetings, and was a warm abolitionist.

In a wing of his house was a shop where he whittled logs into pumps. Also his daughter Mary utilized this shop for her dame school.

One day there was a sudden noise and my brother, a little boy saying his letters, was greatly pleased to find the Deacon had fallen over his pump log.

At one time Deacon Galpin put up a sign on his pump shop, “Anti-Slavery Books for sale here.”

This subjected him to some persecution and it was torn down by the roughs of the village.

The house was moved to its current address in the late 1840s to make way for the building of the Congregational Church.

Edwin O. Smith House (1831)

The house at 668 Middle Turnpike in Mansfield was built in 1831 by Arnold Wilson. Instead of a glass fanlight above the front door it has one made of wood. The house had many owners over the years, with Joseph Woodward adding an ell in 1836. The house was acquired by Edwin O. Smith in 1923, whose wife named it “Kendall Green” after the house in Washington D.C. owned by her ancestor, Amos Kenall, who was U.S. Postmaster General from 1835 to 1840. E. O. Smith served in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1932 to 1960 and was president of the Connecticut Agricultural College (now UCONN) from from April through September, 1908. Edwin O. Smith High School, next to the UCONN campus in Storrs, is named for him.

Annis Williams House (1895)

The Queen Anne house at 242 South Main Street in Cheshire was built circa 1895. At that time the land was owned by Annis Williams (1837-1924), an heir of stage driver Norvil Williams, who had an earlier home on the site. The house later became a funeral home.

Woodward House (1840)

The Woodward House, located at 588 Main Street in Somers, was built around 1840 by a sawnmill owner. In February there was concern over a developer’s plan to construct a CVS pharmacy at the intersection of routes 83 and 190, which would have required the razing of the Greek Revival house. The developer’s plans were eventually dropped.

Elihu Kent, Jr. House (1786)

The house at 161 South Main Street in Suffield was built circa 1786-1787 by Elihu Kent, Jr. (1757-1813). He was the son of Elihu Kent (1733-1814), who was captain of a militia company from Suffield that set out in answer to the Lexington Alarm in 1775. Elihu, Sr. was promoted to major in 1777. Serving with him in the militia was Titus Kent, who was owned by Elihu Kent as a slave. According to volume III of the History of the Western Reserve, by Harriet Taylor Upton, Elihu. Sr.’s son, Colonel Elihu Kent, Jr.

married Elizabeth Fitch, of Lebanon, Connecticut. He was also in the Revolutionary army with his father, and was captured by the British on Long Island and confined for a long time as a prisoner of war in the old “Sugar House” in New York, where he suffered greatly. He was a farmer after the Revolution and kept a tavern at Suffield, Connecticut. He was survived by four children.

A window from the old Sugar House survives in New York City today. (more…)

George Francis House (1750)

The house at 1939 Stanley Street (at the corner of Barbour Street) in New Britain was built around 1750. The original owner of the house was George Francis. A later owner (in the mid-twentieth century) was a Mrs. Barbour, so a sign on the house calls it the “Francis Barbour House.” The house has additions dating to 1876. The original entrance to the house faces Barbour Street, but the main entrance is now on the north side.

Mark F. Spelman House (1845)

211 Washington St., Forestville, Bristol

The house at 211 Washington Street in Forestville in Bristol was built in 1845. It later became the home of Mark F. Spelman, a farmer who purchased the farm on Washington Street, at the head of what is now Central Street, in 1873. The family had earlier lived in Granville, Massachusetts. Spellman’s daughter, Lila Adah Spelman (1866-1945), was born in Granville. She completed her elementary school education in Forestville, but then, because there was no high school in Bristol, she commuted daily by train from Forestville to the Hartford Public High School. She graduated in 1885, taught school in Southington and married William H. Rowe in 1889.