White-Stoddard House (1870)

Henry White built the house at 33 Pleasant Street in Middletown, which faces South Green, around 1870. White was in the coal business. As described in The Leading Business Men of Middeltown, Portland, Durham and Middlefield (1890):

The [coal] business now conducted by Mr. Levi S. Deming was founded many years ago by Mr. H. S. White, who was succeeded about 1860 by Messrs. White & Loveland, who gave place to Messrs. Loveland & Deming in 1871. In 1878 the firm-name became White & Deming, and in 1887 the present proprietor [Deming] (who is a native of Newington, Conn.) assumed sole control.

White was also a president of the Victor Sewing Machine Company, which was in business from 1864 to 1883. In 1895, Orrin E. Stoddard purchased the house from the heirs of Henry White. Stoddard was a partner with George Thomas Meech (they had served in the Civil War together) in a grocery business, Meech & Stoddard. According to the Encyclopedia of Connecticut Biography (c. 1917), “Besides dealing in grain, the establishment has long conducted a milling business and does both wholesale and retail trades throughout the New England territory and in other sections.” In 1927, the house was acquired by the Masons and is now home to St. John’s Lodge No. 2. The Masons added a large addition to the rear of the house.

Francis H. Holmes House (1908)

The Francis H. Holmes House is a residence of eclectic design (primarily Jacobethan, with Craftsman, Shingle and Classical elements) at 349 Rocky Hill Avenue in New Britain. Built in 1906-1908, the house was designed by architect Walter P. Crabtree for Francis H. Holmes, superintendent of the Holmes & Dennis Brick Company. The brick yard, of which Holmes’s father, John W. Holmes was a partner, was located nearby in Berlin, just a few blocks south of the house. The two men were also involved in the creation of the Central Connecticut Brick Company. Fittingly, for the home of a brick manufacturer, the Holmes House features a variety of types of brick. The house once had a porte cochere on the north side. (more…)

William H. Perry House (1857)

William Hunt Perry (1820-1899) was secretary and treasurer of the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company, which produced sewing machines. He was also president of Bridgeport’s parks commission and his will left money for the erection of the Perry Memorial Arch, which serves as a gateway to Seaside Park. William H. Parry’s 1857 Italianate house is at 335 Noble Avenue in East Bridgeport, where he was one of the initial property owners with P.T. Barnum. The two men gave to the city the land for Washington Park.

Harris B. Humason House (1885)

The house at 201 Vine Street in New Britain originally stood on Lexington Street, across from the New Britain Museum of American Art. It was built around 1885 for Edward N. Stanley (1858-1948), president of the Savings Bank of New Britain and a director of The Stanley Works. About 1900, the house was purchased by Harris Burrill Humason (1862-1918), secretary at The Stanley Works, who had previously been renting it. He moved the house to Vine Street and added the porches. Also, please check out my recent posts on my visits to Olana (home of Frederic Edwin Church, who was born in Hartford and is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery), Cedar Grove (home of Thomas Cole) and Hudson, NY.

Horace Webster House (1837)

The Horace Webster Farmhouse (pdf), at 577 South End Road in Southington, is a Greek Revival house built in 1837. It was constructed on land that Webster had purchased in 1835. He moved an earlier house on the site to the rear to become a barn. Thought to have been one of the oldest houses in Southington, it burned down in 1975. Webster, who was a descendent of seventeenth-century governor John Webster, moved to Fair Haven in New Haven in about 1863. His sons continued to operate the property as a cattle farm until 1917. In the 1920s, the farm property became a golf course, now the Southington Country Club.

Ephraim Kirby House (1773)

The house at 113 South Street in Litchfield was completed around 1773 for Ephraim Kirby (it is also known as the Reynolds Marvin-Ephraim Kirby House). A veteran of the Revolutionary War, Ephraim Kirby became an attorney and in 1789 compiled the first volume of state law reports in the country. In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Kirby as the first Superior Court Judge of the Mississippi Territory. Kirby traveled to Fort Stoddert, in what is now Alabama, and died a few months later. His grandson was Edmund Kirby Smith, the Confederate general. The Kirby House was completely transformed in the early twentieth century with numerous Colonial Revival alterations.