Now surrounded by houses of a much later date, the Greek Revival farmhouse at 249-251 Blue Hills Avenue in Hartford was built around 1850. There were once many dairy farms in the area, and this house’s owner, Charles Tuttle, operated one well into the twentieth century.
At 121 Holcomb Street, in the Blue Hills section of Hartford, is a striking example of the Stick Style. A Victorian Stick cottage built around 1875, it displays the style‘s distinctive trademarks of decorative half-timbering (called stickwork) and ornamental woodwork.
This week we’ll focus on buildings in the North End of Hartford. The Samuel F. Cadwell House, at 20 Belden Street in the Clay/Arsenal neighborhood, is one of the most impressive brick Victorian Gothic houses in Hartford; so impressive, in fact, that it is sometimes called the “Mark Twain House of the North End.” It was built in 1879 for Samuel Foote Cadwell, a dealer in seeds and agricultural supplies. The house was only sold out of the Cadwell family in 1967. Later abandoned, the Cadwell House and other nineteenth-century houses on Belden Street were recently rehabilitated.
As described in The Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut (1909):
Romeo Lowery, born in Farmington in 1793. graduated at Yale in 1818, studied at the Litchfield Law School and was admitted to this Bar in 1820. He settled in Southington and was a highly respected member of the Hartford County Bar and a Judge of the County Court. He died in 1856.
Lowery also invested in two local companies that would later became part of Southington’s two most successful firms, Plant Bros. Manufacturing Company and Peck, Stow & Wilcox. Lowery’s 1828 house is at 101 North Main Street in Southington. It remained in his family until 1964 and is today used as offices.
The Francis W. Lewis House is a three-story (with porches on the first two floors) Italianate house at 153 N Main Street in Southington. It has been dated to around 1880, but was apparently converted from a preexisting building dating to 1800. Timlow’s Ecclesiastical and Other Sketches of Southington, Conn. (1875) lists a Francis W. Lewis:
son of Chauncey (184), b. Jan. 21, 1816; m. Dec. 7, 1840, Sarah C. Beckley, daughter of Moses W. and Mary Berkley. He lives in the village of Southington, and has a boot and shoe store.
Captain Samuel Woodruff of Southington was a descendant of Samuel Woodruff, the town’s first colonial settler. As described in Heman Timlow’s Ecclesiastical and Other Sketches of Southington, Conn. (1875):
Capt. Samuel S. Woodbuff, son of Robert, b. Nov. 12, 1811; m. June 8, 1834, Emeline, daughter of Wooster Neal. He lives on the place owned by his father and grandfather. During the last war he was conspicuous for the promptness with which he entered the service, and the gallantry that he displayed during his entire military career. He led the Southington company through the period of their enlistment. In the town he is held in high repute as a man of the most incorruptible integrity. He is a carpenter by trade.
After the war, Capt. Woodruff ran a carriage business connected to his son Adna Neal Woodruff’s contracting business on Liberty Street. Capt. Woodruff and his wife both died in 1882. His house, built around 1840, is at 23 Old State Road in Southington. Starting in 1915, the Murawski family owned the property and built up a large farm which they operated into the late 1960s. The house is notable among Greek Revival houses in in Southington for its pyramidal roof, center chimney and rural location.
The William Cummings House is a Queen Anne-style mansion, built c. 1890 at 28 Elm Street in the Plantsville section of Southington. In 1876, industrialist William H. Cummings married Lucretia Amelia Stow Cummings. She was born in Southington in 1851 and graduated from Vassar in 1874, where she had studied astronomy. Lucretia Stow Cummings served as head of Connecticut’s Public Health Nursing Association, working to reduce infant mortality rates, and led a campaign to improve rural schools in the state. Their grandson is Abbott Lowell Cummings, a noted architectural historian.
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