The house at 199 Huntington Street in Shelton was built around 1810 for John Thompson, a miller. The house is just north of the bridge over the Farmill River and there are two millponds in the immediate vicinity. The side porch on the house’s south side is a later nineteenth-century addition.
The house at 213 Ellsworth Street in the Black Rock neighborhood of Bridgeport was built in 1854 by Capt. Charles Allen. As described in Volume II of the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917), Capt. Allen
came to Bridgeport in an early day and ran a packet between this city and New York. He was commander of the packet Emily and of the schooner Ella Jane for a number of years, owning both boats. He was afterward with the Bridgeport Steamboat Company as pilot of the Crystal Wave and he became a prominent representative of navigation interests in this city. He was a native of Westport, Connecticut, and arrived in Bridgeport in the late ’60s. He married Amanda J. Fairchild, a native of this city […] Throughout his entire life Charles H. Allen was identified with marine interests and became recognized as the most competent pilot on the Sound. He was owner and captain of his own boats, and for a number of years, with his brother, Sereno G., ran a packet line from Westport to New York. He was, moreover, a public-spirited citizen, active in support of measures and movements for the general good, thus displaying the same spirit of loyalty and patriotism which characterized his ancestors who served in the Revolutionay war.
The Isaac Jones House, at 227 Ellsworth Street, next door to the Allen House, was built the same year and was originally an identical Italianate structure, but was much altered in 1910.
In 1851, local joiner Lewis Rowell built as his residence the brick house at 25 Lewis Street (a street renamed in his honor in 1883). The house has a 1926 addition by architects Smith & Bassette, projecting out to the sidewalk. Lewis built the adjoining house, at 27 Lewis Street, in 1855 as a mirror image to his own house. He purchased the house at 30 Lewis Street as a wedding present for his daughter, Mary Rowell Storrs, in 1874. She later lived in an 1899 house on Farmington Avenue.
The Queen Anne house at 385 Barnum Avenue in East Bridgeport was built in 1892 for A.W. Burritt, owner of a lumber company. In 2007, the house was acquired by the Bridgeport Rescue Mission and renovated to serve as a shelter for homeless women.
The house at 25 Prospect Street in New London is a notable early example of the work of Lewis Crandall, a carpenter and builder. Built in 1838-1839, the Greek Revival house has a French Second Empire tower, added later.
As related in D. Hamilton Hurd’s History of Fairfield County, Connecticut (1881):
Samuel Clayton Kingman, the second son of Samuel Kingman, was born in South Redding, Mass. (now Wakefield), in 1830, graduated in the high school, and was the valedictorian of his class. The following year he spent at sea for the benefit of his health, after which he served his time as a machinist in the celebrated Lawrence Machine-Shop, with such apprentices as Amos Whitney, Joseph Marble, F. Higgins, and J. A. Taylor, after which he spent one year in the service of Col. Anderson, at the Tredegar Works at Richmond, Va. Upon his return he entered the employ of the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company, at Watertown, Conn., organized about that time [1852; the company moved to Bridgeport in 1856], and still remains in their employ. He has invented a number of machines for the Company which have resulted in a great saving of labor.
Mr. Kingman was married in 1853 to Miss Emily Eustis Brooks, at Haverhill, Mass., a descendant of Governor Eustis. He has ever been a benefactor to the poor and sorrowing, and his gifts, with those of his companions, have been many. The bell of the Park Street Church, to which they belonged, memorizes the death of a soldier, friend, and brother, Albion D. Brooks, killed at Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864. The clock and communion-table presented by them attest their interest in the welfare of their church.
Mr. Kingman resides at Washington Park, [in East Bridgeport,] in a delightful residence, surrounded by his family, which consists of his wife and live daughters. He has occupied many positions of public trust, and enjoys the confidence and esteem of the citizens of the city in which he resides.
As a prominent citizen of Bridgeport, Kingman was appointed a secretary of the meeting of Republicans in Washington Hall that heard a speech by Abraham Lincoln on March 10, 1860. Kingman’s house in East Bridgeport was built in 1870. Located at 373 Noble Avenue, it was designed by architect Abram Skaats.
The Nathaniel Backus House, at 44 Rockwell Street in Norwich, was built as a Colonial era house in 1750, but is notable for its later Federal-style detailing. The house is named for Nathaniel Backus, Jr., who married Hannah Baldwin in 1726. Backus was one of only six men in Norwich who owned their own carriages in the years before the Revolutionary War. The house originally stood on lower Broadway. In 1951, it was saved from demolition and moved to Rockwell Street by the Faith Trumbull Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Together with the neighboring Perkins-Rockwell House, the Backus House is operated as a museum by the DAR.
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