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.
In 1738 Jabez Lathrop sold his family‘s property in Norwich to Captain Joshua Huntington (1698-1745), a prominent merchant. This land probably included the house that exists today at 19 East Town Street, which Huntington proceeded to enlarge. As related in by Mary E. Perkins in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895):
The house, now owned by Mrs. John White, is said to have been built by Joshua Huntington, about 1740. As a large price was paid for this property, and the house has many features which seem to indicate an earlier origin than 1740, it is possible, that, instead of destroying or removing the old Lathrop mansion, Joshua may have altered and remodeled it, but of this we have have no positive proof.
Capt. Joshua Huntington gave his earlier house, at 16 Huntington Lane, to his son Jabez Huntington. The house at 19 East Town Street was later extensively remodeled: the prominent gable on the front facade was added after 1895 (when the book by Perkins was published).
Lucerne is the name of the castle-like mansion at 20 Davis Street in Hamden. Designed by the architects Brown and Von Beren, it was built in 1906 for Frederick D. Grave. A German immigrant who arrived in America in 1861, Grave learned the cigar trade and in 1884 founded his own company in New Haven. Still in business, the company has been known since 1911 as F.D. Grave & Son. The mansion is now home to the architectural offices of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates.
The house at 1370 Enfield Street in Enfield was built in 1783. It was a wedding present from Capt. Ephra[h]im Pease (who lived next door) for his daughter Agnes (1760-1799), who married Rev. Nehemiah Prudden (1749-1815), minister at Enfield’s Congregational Church. After Agnes died, Rev. Prudden married her sister, Sybil (1754-1822), who was the widow of Prudden’s predecessor as minister, Elam Potter (1742-1894). (Potter had been dismissed as minister following a religious controversy in 1776.) In 1811 a volume by Rev. Prudden was published in Hartford with the title: To Marry a Wife’s Sister Not Inconsistent with the Divine Law.
Tonight I’ll be giving a talk about my book Vanished Downtown Hartford at the Enfield Public Library! Stop by at 7:00 PM and buy a signed copy of my book! The house pictured above, at 158 Pearl Street in Thompsonville in Enfield, was built circa 1881. It was the home of Jabez and Elizabeth Davis. Jabez P. Davis was a veterinarian, Enfield First Selectman (1896) and judge of the town court (1907)
The house at 105 East Pattagansett Road in East Lyme was built circa 1760 by Joseph Smith, the son of Samuel Smith, whose 1695 house survives on Plants Dam Road. During the Revolutionary War, the house was rented to Elisha Beckwith, a notorious Tory, who was known to pass intelligence to the British force based at Sag Harbor, Long Island. The British would cross Long Island Sound at night, hide their boat at Crescent Beach and leave the next day with supplies provided by Beckwith. Beckwith was likely a valuable source of information for Benedict Arnold during the raid on New London on September 6, 1781. The Connecticut Gazette of November 30, 1781 (also quoted in John Warner Barber’s Connecticut Historical Collections under the date December 6, 1781) reported that
Last Friday a guard under the command of Ensign Andrew Griswold, stationed at Lyme, discovered a whale boat in a fresh pond near Black Point; and suspecting it came from Long Island, they set a guard of five men over the boat; and the night after four others of the guard with Ensign Griswold, went towards the house of the noted Elisha Beckwith; one of the party named Noah Lester, advanced faster than the rest, and was challenged by Beckwith’s wife, who was near the house; this alarmed ten men who were in the house, well armed, and they immediately seized upon and made prisoner of Lester, and carried him into the house. Soon after the other four of the guard came to the house, (not knowing Lester was a prisoner,) and went directly in; where they discovered the ten persons in arms: a scuffle immediately ensued between them; and after some lime the guard secured six of the party, among whom was Elisha Beckwith; the other four made their escape into the woods, but they all except one were taken the next day. They came in the above boat from Long Island, and were under the command of Thomas Smith, formerly of Middletown, who had a Captain’s commission under the British King. Elisha Beckwith went off with the enemy the 6th Sept. last, when they made their descent on this place. The above culprits are secured in Norwich gaol.
After spending time in the Hartford Jail, Beckwith eventually reunited with his family in Nova Scotia in 1782.
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