James Warner House (1760)

The house at 447 Old Main Street in Rocky Hill was built around 1760 and was home to the Deming family. The covered Federal-style front doorway portico was added to the house around 1800. The property was later owned by members of the Merriam family. Around 1863, James Warner acquired the house, which was valued at $10,000 in the 1860 census. The property continued to be farmed by members of the Warner family over several generations. It was passed down to Carl Warner, an optician who later retired to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he died in 1967. Carl Warner also owned the house next door, which was built in 1773 and later demolished. The current owners of the James Warner House purchased it in October 2011 and have a blog called Confessions of An Antique Home in which they relate their adventures in owning a historic house.

Charles Bulkeley II House (1785)

Charles Bulkeley the 2nd was a ship captain who built the house at 530 Old Main Street in Rocky Hill between 1785 and 1790. He lived just down the street from the house of his father, Charles Bulkeley, Sr. The younger Charles Bulkeley married Eunice Robbins in 1785. After her husband died of smallpox in the West Indies in 1799, Eunice stayed on in the house until her own death in 1835 and passed it down to her unmarried daughter Augusta.

Nellie E. McKnight Museum (1812)

The Nellie E. McKnight Museum is a historic house owned by the Ellington Historical Society. Located at 70 Main Street, the brick Federal house was built in 1812 for Charles Sexton, a farmer and store owner. Howard McKnight, the father of Nellie E. McKnight, bought the house in 1922. Nellie McKnight had been born on her father’s farm in Ellington in 1894. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1917 and taught school until 1929, when she return to Ellington and became the librarian of the Hall Memorial Library, a position she held until her retirement in 1967. She continued to live in the Sexton/McKnight house until her death in 1981, when the house and its contents were bequeathed to the Historical Society to become a museum.

Chauncey Winchell Homestead (1830)

Born in Berlin in 1796, Chauncey Winchell later came to Talcottville in Vernon and began working as a millwright. In 1829, he moved to Rockville (also in Vernon). In 1833, he was one of the organizers of the Springville Mill, one of Rockville‘s earliest woolen mills. A skilled builder, Winchell constructed his Greek Revival homestead in 1830 at 174 West Main Street, where the Springville Mill was located. He then constructed several other homes on the same street for his colleagues at the mill, including one for his his partner, Alonzo Bailey (at 162-164 West Main Street, built in 1836). Chauncey Winchell married Mary Vibberts in 1816 and one of their children was Cyrus Winchell, built two houses on Ellington Avenue in Rockville in 1885. Chauncey Winchell served as president of the Springville Manufacturing Company for 52 years.

Church’s Tavern (1738)

Church’s Tavern, also known as the Old Post Tavern and the Risley House, is a colonial house at 11 Main Street South in Bethlehem. While Aaron Burr was a student at Dr. Joseph Bellamy‘s theological school in Bethlehem, he mentioned the house in a letter to his sister dated January 17, 1774. The letter is quoted in volume 1 of James Parton’s The Life and Times of Aaron Burr (1893):

P. M., 2 o’clock.—I have just been over to the Tavern to buy candles; there I saw six slay-loads of Bucks & Bells, from Woodberry, and a happier company I believe there never was; it really did me good to look at them. They were drinking Cherry Rum when I entered the room, and I easily perceived that both Males and Females had enough to keep them in Spirits. The Females especially looked too immensely goodnatured to say no to anything. And I doubt not the Effects of this Frolic will be very visible a few Months hence.

Captain William E. Wheeler House (1853)

Built in 1853, the Captain William E. Wheeler House is an Italianate residence at 159 High Street in Mystic. According to A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, Volume 3 (1922):

William E. Wheeler, born at Stonington, went to sea on a sailing vessel, later on whaling vessels, and still later on coasting vessels, sailing from New York to southern United States ports. In 1854, he went into the East India trade, sailing from New York to China for A. A. Lowe & Brothers on the barque “Penguin.” In 1865 he ran a steamer from New York to southern ports. He was a member of the State Legislature, and very prominent as a Democrat. He married, in Groton, August 24, 1831, Pedee Heath, of Groton, and they became the parents of four children

As related in Groton, Conn. 1705-1905, by Charles R. Stark:

William E. Wheeler, [State representative in] 1873 and 1875, was a sea captain sailing in the employ of A. A. Low & Co. in the China tea trade and was afterwards in the general store business in Mystic. He died in 1889.