The oldest house in Bristol is located at 14 Daniel Road. It was built in 1729 by Benjamin Buck, from Southington, and his wife Mercy Parsons. They lived in the house until 1736. The house was once thought to have not survived, until it was discovered in 1951 hidden behind overgrown trees and brush!
Around 1739, John Fletcher (d. 1788) and his wife, Rachel Wing Fletcher (1697-1778) (they married in 1720 in Harwich, Massachusetts), settled in the village of Wormwood Hill in Mandfield. By the mid-1750s they had built the central-chimney house at 611 Wormwood Hill Road. According to Wormwood Hill: Its Settlement and Growth (2009) by Rudy J. Favretti and Isabelle K. Atwood, John Fletcher became wealthy purchasing and selling various pieces of land. His son John possibly lived in the house, which then passed to his younger brother, Capt. Richard Fletcher (1736-1812), who sold it in 1806. It then had other owners. In 1843 it was acquired by Amos G. Fenner (1807-1882), a farmer originally from Warwick, Rhode Island. His son William (1837-1918) and daughter-in-law Damorous Anstice Holley Fenner (1835-1907) later lived in the house and turned the south lawn into a croquet court. In 1913, their son Frank E. Fenner (1865-1933), who lived in Waterbury, sold the house to his cousin, George Silas Clark (1869-1938). In 1954, it was purchased by H. John Thorkelson (d. 2003), an economics professor at UCONN, and his wife Virginia, is now the home of their son, Peter Tork, formerly of the band The Monkees.
The house at 79 Elm Street in Ansonia was built in 1754 by Joseph Howell. It was later the home of Dr. Silas Baldwin (1729-1813), Derby’s third physician (Ansonia was at that time part of the town of Derby). He married Mary Plumb of Ridgefield in 1755. According to the Sixth Report of the National Society of the Daughter of the American Revolution (1904):
Dr. Silas Baldwin, Revolutionary patriot […] Assisted in establishing American independence while acting in the capacity of a patriot. He accepted the oath of fidelity to the United States April 13, 1778. Dr. Silas Baldwin enlisted June, 1776, in Captain Johnson’s company Fifth Battalion, Wadsworth’s brigade, Colonel Douglas’s regiment to reenforce Washington’s army at New York; August 29-30, 1776, engaged in the retreat to New York; was at the battle of White Plains October 28. Term expired December 26. (History of Derby, p. 187.)
No. 24 on muster roll of Capt. Elijah Humphrey’s company, Connecticut Regiment of Foot, commanded by Col. Return Jonathan Meigs, was Silas Baldwin, enlisting March 27,1777, “on command,” which maybe received in explanation of the record on page 208, Connecticut Men in the Revolution, which says: “Silas Baldwin in Humphrey’s company, Connecticut Line, enlisted March 27,1777; deserted August, 1779.” (Connecticut Men in the Revolution, pp. 208, 407; muster roll of Capt. Elijah Humphrey’s company. Copy deposited.)
Dr. Silas Baldwin was born in Waterbury and died in Ridgefield, but generally resided in the section of Derby that is now Ansonia. He is buried in Ansonia’s Colonial Cemetery. (more…)
William E. Weld, a builder of many homes in Guilford in the nineteenth century, built the house at 88 Boston Street for Albert B. Wildman in 1852. Albert Boardman Wildman (1810-1878) was a merchant whose store was at 11 Boston Street (also built by Weld). Wildman was eulogized by Henry Pynchon Robinson in Guilford Portraits (1907):
ALBERT BOARDMAN WILDMAN.
June 2, 1810—May 2, 1878.
He stood uprightly tall and manly fair,
And wore on his smooth face the higher air
Of honor and proved probity, unswerving.
It seemed quite natural nor needed nerving
From sermon or from motive practical;
The gift, its own reward, more actual.
He was a merchant, of an older time,
When six pence passed by candlelight for dime.
Tuttle he knew and loved and linked the name
With his; merchants of good report and fame,
Successful through their dealing days and lives.
Not such as bold and meritless connives
To seize and turn the common weal to woe,
But sought by willing suffrage he did go
And added Guilford to the common sense;
Then through the war he served by son and pence.
His manner frank and fair and mild and genial,
As fellow man, well would treat a menial.
A father of the town, he walked our ways
And then from life retreated, full of praise.
Various dates have been given for the Federal/Greek Revival house at 2146 Main Street in Glastonbury. Some claim 1780, while the Historical Society of Glastonbury records give 1850/1851. Notable for its tin roof, it is known as the Talcott-Hollister House. Replacing an earlier Talcott Homestead, torn down in 1850, it was built the following year by Jared Talcott. It was next home to his son, Capt. Charles H. Talcott, and later to Charles‘ daughter Charlotte and her husband, Norman E. Hollister (1845-1923).
Real Estate sites give the date of the Josiah Smith House, at 74 Elm Street, at the corner of Main Street, in Ansonia, as 1797. The house was built by Josiah Smith and was owned by several generations of his family before it was sold to Jonah Platt. It is a late Georgian/Early Federal style house with a fan light window above the front door and a later Victorian front porch.
The former residence at 208 High Street in Middletown was built sometime between 1859 and 1870. Its original appearance was in a different architectural style. It was a cross gabled building with projecting eaves and a Victorian porch. A one-story wing (later raised to two stories) was added to the rear in 1876. The brick house was built on a tract of land developed by Israel Bailey and was a rental property until 1892, when Jennie A. Bailey Sibley and her husband, Howard A. Sibley, acquired title to the property from other heirs of Israel Bailey. The house was altered early in the twentieth century when the current entrance porch and a classical pediment and cornice with modillions were added. The Sibleys occupied the house until 1920. The following year, it was acquired by Wesleyan University for use as housing. It is now Wesleyan’s Office of Public Safety.
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