William Miller III (born in 1659 in Northampton, Mass.), a farmer, settled in Glastonbury on land his father had purchased in 1660. Miller married Mary Bushnell of Old Saybrook in 1693. He built the house at 1855 Main Street in 1704 (the date and his initials were carved on the kitchen door latch) and died a year later.
A sign on the house at 22 Elm Street in Ansonia lists it as the “Charles Bristol Homestead” built in 1848. It is also known as the John Lampert House. Lampert bought the house in 1881.
The Harry Bartholomew House, at 341 Main Street in Bristol, was designed by architect Joel Case. There is a local story, according to which Bartholomew was already building the Italianate house when he met Joel Case outside. Case told him the house needed a tower and Bartholomew immediately had the workers begin building one. The entire house, though, is very much in Case’s style of architecture.
The house at 14 Elm Avenue in Norwich was built between 1747 and 1752 by William Morgan of Groton. In 1757 he sold the house to Nathan Stedman, an attorney. In 1764 Stedman sold the house to Azariah Lathrop, who enlarged it or rebuilt it. Azariah lived with his son, Dr. Gurdon Lathrop, who was a druggist and had a shop across the Norwichtown Green. Another son of Azariah, Gerard Lathrop, inherited the house in 1810. According to the 1895 book Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich, by Mary E. Perkins:
Gerard Lathrop had seven children, three of whom were born in Norwich. In 1814, he conveys his property in Norwich to his brother-in-law, Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely of Philadelphia, and later resides in Savannah and New York City. The house had then for many years a variety of tenants. Capt. Elisha Leffingwell resided here for a time. In 1823, it was sold to Capt. Bela Peck. In 1853, it passed into the possession of the Lanman family, and is still owned by the widow of Peter Lanman, who occasionally resides here.
The house at 51 Holmes Avenue in Waterbury was built in 1890 for Alfred F. Taylor, who owned a painting and decorating company. He had previous lived for about a year in the house next door at 47 Holmes Avenue. The house at 51 Holmes Avenue is now used as a law office.
The house at 463 Halliday Avenue in Suffield was built in 1824 by George Fuller. It remained in the Fuller family (and is known as the John Fuller House) until the Town of Suffield bought the property in 1887 to serve as a Town Farm. The house became the town’s “poorhouse” or “alms house,” whose able-bodied residents were required to work at the adjacent farm. In 1886, a man known as “Old Cato” died in the house who had been a slave owned by Major John Davenport in Stamford in the years before the War of 1812. The house was sold back to private ownership at auction in 1952. (more…)
The will of Eliphalet Wadsworth, who died in 1823, deeded his land in Farmington to his relative Timothy Wadsworth, but also gave life use of the property to his widow Mary. In 1829, Timothy Wadsworth replaced the original eighteenth-century (1795?) house with a new Greek Revival one. Here he lived with his wife Mary until he died in 1841. She continued to reside there until she passed away in 1862. Their children sold the property in 1865. According to tradition, the house was a station on the Underground Railroad. In helping fugitive slaves, the Wadsworth’s made use of the passenger boats on the Farmington Canal, which ran through their property behind their house. The Timothy Wadsworth House, which is located at 340 Main Street in Farmington, is now used for offices, having been renovated and expanded for that purpose, construction being completed in 2008.
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