Among the buildings designed by Theodate Pope Riddle for Avon Old Farms school was an Estate Manager’s House. Located near the Water Tower, Forge and Chapel, the cottage was built c. 1922-1923. With its half-timbering and brick nogging, it resembles the traditional English houses of Sussex and Surrey. It is now known as the Gate House. (more…)
The house at 144 South Main Street in Colchester was built around 1840 by John Kellogg, who sold it in 1842. It was purchased in 1854 by Philo Gillett, who had been renting it for some years. A merchant from Boston, Gillett formed the firm of Wheeler and Gillett in Colchester in partnership with Joshua B. Wheeler. Gillett died in 1858 and his widow in 1862, after which the house was sold to Samuel D. Tilden of Yonkers, New York, who added an ornamental wrought—iron fence, sadly since removed, along the front of the property. In 1878 the house was acquired by Henry C. Morgan, who served as Assistant Quartermaster-General and then Commissary-General of the State of Connecticut and used the house as a country home. The house then had other owners and since 1954 has housed the Belmont Funeral Home.
The James Wright House is located at 1597 Hebron Avenue in Glastonbury. It is a center-chimney house built in 1761. The house is also known as the Treat Tavern. A sign for the Treat Tavern is on display in Glastonbury’s Museum on the Green.
The James Reid House, at 88 Windham Road in Willimantic, was built in 1879-1880 by the Willimantic Linen Company for its chemist and dye master, James M. Reid. It stands next to the home of Eugene S. Boss, the company’s manager. After 1960, the Reid house was home to the Hallahan and Cardinal funeral home (pdf).
Like the neighboring house at 224 Cornwall Avenue, the house at 214 Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire was built in the 1850s by Edward A. Cornwall to rent to rent to one of the many miners from Cornwall, England who were emigrating at the time to Cheshire to work in the barite mines. Barite was discovered in Cheshire around 1840 and mining activity continued until 1878. The house was purchased for $850 by William Moon, a miner from Cornwall, in 1862. He paid $$250 down with a $600 mortgage held by Edward Cornwall. The current owners have expanded the house in recent years. (pdf source)
Austin F. Williams (1805-1885), a leading abolitionist in Farmington, was a member of the defense committee that worked to secure the freedom for the Amistad captives in 1841. Before returning home to Africa, the Mendi captives stayed in Farmington (March through November, 1841) while funds were raised for their return journey. Williams constructed a building on his property where the male members of the group lived. The building was later used by Williams as a carriage house. The picture below shows the west side of the carriage house-the section visible from Main Street-which was not added until after the Mendi departed from Farmington.
The Italianate house at 105 High Street in Bristol was the home of Catharine R. Root. A school teacher in her youth, Catherine Roberts married Joel Henry Root in 1852. According to Bristol, Connecticut: “In the Olden Time New Cambridge” (1907), in 1859 Mr. and Mrs. Root moved into their house on High Street “where they have lived ever since and which was one of the very first houses to be built on that street.” This is probably the house 105 High Street, which is listed in the Federal Hill Historic District nomination as the “Catharine R. Root House” built c. 1870. Joel H. Root (died 1885) was a successful industrialist, who built a factory on Root’s Island that produced piano hardware and brass butt hinges. His son, Charles J. Root (1858-1907), continued the business and engaged in others, including real estate. On August 20, 1907, a car accident took the lives of Charles J. Root and his mother Catharine R. Root. As described in the Bristol Press (and reprinted in the 1907 history quoted above):
No happier party, comprising Charles Root, his mother, Catherine R. Root [who was eighty years old at the time], Miss Mary P. Root [his sister], Miss Candace Roberts [his aunt] and Miss Catherine Root, a fourteen years old niece [daughter of Theodore Root], left Bristol last Sunday, Aug. 18, 1907, and not many people enjoyed automobile riding so much as these people.
[. . .]The party left here soon after nine o’clock Sunday morning. Mr. Root and Miss Roberts occupied the front seat of the big Stanley steam touring car. The other three were on the rear seat. The route led through Torrington and Norfolk which was reached about noon. From there the route was to Ashley Falls in Massachusetts. Near the Ashley Falls station the fine, hard highway runs parallel with the railroad tracks for perhaps a mile and is only a few feet distant. While the Root automobile was speeding along this road an overdue express train came in sight at terrific speed. The highway crosses the track at an abrupt angle. Express train and auto reached the fatal crossing almost at the same moment. Just how it happened can never be known but the automobile struck the train, probably the baggage car, a glancing blow and was instantaneously and completely wrecked. The occupants were hurled out with awful force, apparently striking their heads against the train, and were then carried some distance. All were frightfully mangled. Mr. Root and Miss Roberts were killed instantly. Mrs. Root had her skull fractured and died while being taken to Great Barrington. Miss Root had her skull fractured and her right shoulder crushed. She was removed to the House of Mercy in Pittsfield.
The only one to escape was Miss Catherine Root, and the manner in which she came through the crash is little short of miraculous. She was buried beneath the wreckage of the machine which for some unaccountable reason did not take fire. She was taken to the home of a friend in Great Barrington. She was dazed but appeared not to be seriously hurt, and was brought to the home of her parents, here, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Root, on Monday.
Unfortunately, the young Miss Catherine Root died less than a year-and-a-half later, at Miss C. E. Mason’s School, The Castle, in Tarrytown, New York. As related in the Utica Herald-Dispatch on January 6, 1909:
While apparently only slightly injured at the time of the incident, Miss Root had suffered with convulsions since that time. Recently her health had been improving and she returned Monday from spending the holidays at her home and seemed in better health than ever.
Yesterday Miss Root had an attack and fell to the floor, striking her head on the edge of a box in her room. A trained nurse who stays at the school hurried to her assistance and Dr. Coulant, who lives Just outside the school grounds, was called in, but the young lady died of a hemorrhage of the brain before he arrived.
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