The house (pdf) at 240 West Main Street in Cheshire was built circa 1845 for Augustus C. Peck, a mechanic. In the 1860s, the Greek Revival house was purchased by Dr. M.M. Chamberlain, who enlarged and modified it with Victorian additions.
Dr. Joshua Lathrop (1723-1807) graduated from Yale in 1743 and joined his older brother, Dr. Daniel Lathrop, in Norwich, where they opened the first drug store (apothecary), in Connecticut. As explained by Frances Manwaring Caulkins in her History of Norwich (1866), soon after graduating, he
went to Europe, where he prosecuted his medical studies in London. On his return, after an absence of several years, he brought with him a large quantity of medicines, as well as various other merchantable goods, and established himself in business in his native place. His shop was on the main street, near his family residence.
Dr. Lathrop furnished a part of the surgical stores to the northern army in the French war. He often received orders from New York. His drugs were always of the best kind, well prepared, packed and forwarded in the neatest manner. This was the only apotliecary’s establishment on the route from New York to Boston, and of course Dr. Lathrop had a great run of custom, often filling orders sent from the distance of a hundred miles in various directions.
The poet Lydia Sigourney, who grew up in Norwich, remembered Dr. Lathrop from her childhood. In Letters of Life (1866), she writes:
Indeed, I think I see now his small, well knit, perfectly erect form, his mild, benevolent brow, surmounted by the large round white wig, with its depth of curls, the three-cornered smartly cocked hat, the nicely plaited stock, the rich silver buckles at knee and shoe, the long waistcoat, and fair ruffles over hand and bosom, which marked the gentleman of the old school; and he never yielded to modern innovation. A large oil portrait of him, in this costume, with one of his beautiful wife, courteously presenting him a plentiful dish of yellow peaches, adorned their best parlor, covered with green moreen curtains, at which I gazed when a little child with eyes dilated, as on the wonders of the Vatican.
He was a man of the most regular and temperate habits, fond of relieving the poor in secret, and faithful in all the requisitions of piety. He was persevering to very advanced age in taking exercise in the open air, and especially in daily equestrian excursions, withheld only by very inclement weather. At eighty-four, he might be seen, mounted upon his noble, lustrous black horse, readily urged to an easy canter, his servant a little in the rear. Continual rides in that varied and romantic region were so full of suggestive thought to his religious mind, that he was led to construct a nice juvenile book on the works of nature, and of nature’s God. Being in dialogue form, it was entitled “The Father and Son;” and we, younglings, received a copy with great gratitude from the kind-hearted author. It was stitched in coarse flowered paper, and sometimes presented as a Thanksgiving gift to the children of his acquaintance, or any whom he might chance to meet in the streets. How well I recollect his elastic step in walking, his agility in mounting or dismounting his steed, and that calm, happy temperament, which, after he was an octogenarian, made him a model for men in their prime.
In 1763, Joshua Lothrop had a house built at 377 Washington Street in Norwich, across the street from his brother’s home. Benedict Arnold may have stayed in the house when he was an apprentice to the Lathrop brothers.
Dwight E. Potter (1840-1911) was a carpenter and builder based in Willimantic. As head carpenter for the Willimantic Linen Company, he designed and constructed mill buildings, an office building and worker housing and was superintendent of all outside work. He also helped to build the Loomer Opera House on Main Street and ran a woodworking shop that produced interior and exterior architectural millwork for Willimantic’s Victorian-era houses. Potter was chief of Willimantic’s fire department from 1873 to 1880. In 1881, Potter and his first wife, Mary Ann Hazen, moved into a house he had designed and erected at 76 Windham Road. The house is now home to the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The Greek Revival house at 14 (or 12) Washington Street in Bristol was built for Elisha Manross in 1832 (although the town assessors database lists it as 1740). Elisha Manross was a Bristol clock-maker. As related in Bristol, Connecticut (“In the Olden Time New Cambridge”) which Includes Forestville (1907):
Was born in Bristol, May 11, 1792, and became one of the pioneers of brass clock-making in America, making the first jeweled movements ever made here. He was a Captain in the war of 1812. and commanded a company of one hundred men to guard the coast at Fort Killingly. He was also Captain of the Bristol Artillery Company. He was a deacon and long a member of the Congregational Church in Bristol. Three of his sons were in the Civil War, Captain Newton, Sergeant Elias and John. He was an extensive land owner in Forestville, and conducted a large clock business. In 1821 he married Maria Cowles Norton. He died September 27, 1856.
Located at 28 The Green in Watertown is a house originally designed by noted builder/architect David Hoadley, although it has been much altered over the years. It was built in 1805 for Alanson Warren, Senior, first president of Wheeler & Wilson, manufacturers of sewing machines. One of his sons, Truman A. Warren, built a house across the street in 1851. Another son, Alanson Warren, Jr., inherited his father’s house and made substantial alterations to it in the Italianate style: large wings were added and a veranda that spanned the front facade. In the 1930s, the house was altered again in the Federal Revival style by architect Cameron Clark (pdf). The Italianate wings were replaced with smaller ones and the interior was completely remodeled. Clark also added the central entry porch.
Built circa 1820, the Greek Revival House at 1306 Main Street in Glastonbury was once part of a farm that consisted of 70 acres both sides of Main Street. This included the Old Cider Mill across the street. The farm was once owned by the Hale family and Roger Hale had a house on the site of the current one. The property was later acquired by Hale’s nephew, Asa Hale Miller. Lloyd Holland later lived in the house and operated the Cider Mill.
At 60 South Main Street in Suffield is the house built in the Federal style for Charles Shepard in 1824. Shepard was a lawyer who practiced in Suffield from 1820 to 1829 and in Hartford from 1830 to 1850. He also represented Suffield in the state assembly from 1826 to 1828. The house was later home to the Fuller family. According to “The Town of Suffield,” by David E. Tarn (The White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, Vol. VII, No. 6, December, 1921):
The Charles Shepard house is distinguished by its very graceful porch, of which the balustrade, however, would appear to be a later addition. The general proportions of this house, and especially the pitch of the roof, are distinctly of Connecticut.
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