John Treadwell Norton House (1832)

John Treadwell Norton House

Born in Farmington in 1795, John Treadwell Norton (d. 1869) became successful in the hardware business in Albany, New York. Treadwelll, who had been a surveyor and engineer for the Erie Canal, returned to Farnmington to construct a feeder canal that would supply water to the Farmington Canal from the Farmington River in Unionville. On land inherited in 1824 from his grandfather, he built a Georgian-style mansion at 11 Mountain Spring Road in Farmington in 1832, where he lived as a gentleman farmer. The house of his grandfather, John Treadwell (1745-1823), who served as Governor of Connecticut, had been a station on the Underground Railroad. John Treadwell Norton was also an abolitionist. He was one of the first people to visit the Amistad captives who were confined in a jail in New Haven. He played a major role in bringing the captives to Farmington, where they lived for 8 months before returning to Africa. The property was later owned by Austin Dunham Barney and was called the Barney House. For a time, the house was a used as a conference center and bed and breakfast by the University of Connecticut. In 2001, it was sold to its current owners, who have returned to calling the house its original name of Glenbrook.

Huntley-Brown House (1795)

Huntley-Brown House

Gurdon Clark built the Huntley-Brown House on the Boston Post Road in Laysville in Old Lyme around 1795. Matthew Peck purchased the house in 1808 and sold it to William B. Tooker in 1827. Marvin Huntley, Jr. (1800–1886) bought the house a year later and it remained in the Huntley family for over a century. In 1959, architect Jane Carter and her daughter-in-law Sue McCloud Carter purchased the house and moved it to a lot near the Florence Griswold House. Mrs. John Crosby Brown, President of the Lyme Society, acquired the house in 1974 to serve as a home for the Society’s Director. It was later converted to administrative offices and is still on the grounds of the Florence Griswold Museum.

Heli Hoadley House (1805)

37 Park Street, Guilford

The Federal-style house at 37 Park Street in Guilford was constructed in 1805 by builder Abraham Coan for Heli Hoadley and his wife, Mabel Ann Seward. Hoadley soon moved to New Haven. As described in The Hoadley Genealogy (1894) by Francis Bacon Trowbridge:

Heli Hoadley resided in New Haven, Conn., and carried on the business of making trucks, carts, wheelbarrows, etc. His shop was situated on State street on the homestead lot, where Osborne street has since been cut through. After his wife’s death he gave up his flourishing business, and the property was sold and divided between the children. He died at his son John’s in North Haven and was buried in the Grove Street cemetery in New Haven.

The house was then owned by the Reverend Aaron Dutton, who was minister at the First Congregational Church of Guilford from 1806 to 1842. He resigned because of dissension in the church concerning his abolitionist views, which his congregation deemed too radical. The house was also once home to Charles Hubbard, a writer, teacher and artist. Hubbard referred to his third floor studio as Hobgoblin Hall.

Edmund Boldero House (1801)

1022 Worthington Ridge, Berlin

Edmund Boldero (1767-1839) emigrated from England in 1801 with Reverend Evan Johns (1763-1849) and the two, with their families, shared the house at 1022 Worthington Ridge in Berlin, built c. 1801. According to Catharine M. North’s History of Berlin (1915):

In 1801 the Rev. Evan Johns and Mr. Edmund Boldero, with their wives, who were sisters, came to America from England. The pulpit of the Second Congregational Church of Berlin had been without a settled minister since the death of Mr. Goodrich in 1799. Mr. Johns was called to be his successor and was installed June 9, 1802. He was a man of good ability, but he had a high temper, so poorly controlled that he and his people were kept in turmoil until, to the relief of both, he was dismissed February 13, 1811.

He chose as the text of his last sermon, the words “The Devil is the father of liars, and ye are the children of your father.” He went on to say, “You are all liars, and the truth is not in you.” One good brother, in righteous indignation, rose in his seat to go up and pitch Mr. Johns out of the pulpit, and was hardly restrained from his purpose. Mr. Johns desired to preach one more Sunday in order that he might finish what he had to say, but he was not allowed to enter the pulpit.

The two English families, Johns and Boldero, lived together, in the house lately owned by S. F. Raymond, situated next south of the Horace Steele place. Mr. Johns had one son, Thomas, who, for fear of contamination, was not allowed to go to school, or to play with other children. When Tommy was out in his yard, the little boys of the neighborhood would go and peek at him through the pickets. Then Mrs. Johns would appear and say, “Tommy, come away. I do not wish you to speak to those children.” It was said that as soon as Tommy came to his majority he plunged into all manner of dissipation and went speedily to “the bad.”

The Bolderos remained after the dismissal of Mr. Johns until the death of Mr. Boldero in 1839. Then Mrs. Boldero boarded in the family of Charles A. Goodrich until her death in 1842. […]

There was a mystery about the Bolderos that was buried with them. Some said Mr. Boldero had offended the king and that he came to America to avoid arrest. They lived a secluded life and kept their house locked. Whenever anyone came there, a door would be opened a crack, or a chamber window might be raised, to inquire what the errand was. The children of that generation used to think it great fun on Thanksgiving day to dress up and go from house to house making calls. A party of them once stopped at the Bolderos and knocked at the door. Mrs. Boldero opened a window and asked what they wanted. They answered: “It is Thanksgiving day and we have come to call upon you.” She replied: “Every day, with me, is Thanksgiving, and you’d better run right along.”

When Mr. and Mrs. Boldero left England they supposed they were coming to a wilderness and they brought chest upon chest of clothing, all made up, sufficient to last a lifetime. Mrs. Boldero used to wear to church a pink silk petticoat and a blue silk long shawl. After the service they would wait until all the congregation had gone out, when Mrs. Boldero would say, “My dear, I think we may venture now.” Then she would lift her skirt daintily, take her husband’s arm, and step down the aisle. They always walked about the yard arm in arm. There were two or three young ladies in the village to whom Mrs. Boldero took a fancy and these favored few were occasionally invited to take a cup of tea with her. The Boldero house was afterward occupied by Sherlock C. Hall, who about 1852 was postmaster. The office was kept in the south front room of the dwelling.