The Charles H. Russell Block, 374-384 Atlantic Street in Bridgeport, is a four-unit block of row houses built in 1882. Based on circumstantial evidence, the building has been attributed to the architectural firm of Palliser, Palliser & Company. The block is part of a planned development of working-class housing, innovatively designed by the Pallisers on land owned by P.T. Barnum.
Since 1935, the house at 135 North Broad Street in Milford has been home to Smith Funeral Home, founded in 1886 by George J. Smith. The wing on the west side is the earliest section of the house. The building was much expanded in 1853-1855 by John Fowler as an Italianate villa. Simon Lake bought the house in 1900 and further expanded it, building a laboratory behind it. Simon Lake was a mechanical engineer and naval architect who is credited with inventing the modern submarine.
The Italian villa-style house at 44 South Street in Litchfield was built by George M. Woodruff in 1855. Like his father, George C. Woodruff (1805-1885), who lived next door at 58 South Street, George M. Woodruff was a lawyer and politician, holding various town and state offices.
The house at 58 South Street in Litchfield was built in 1829 by Elihu Harrison (1797-1855), who ran a general store in the center of town from 1825 to 1836. The house was later owned by George C. Woodruff, a lawyer and a U.S. Representative (1861-1863). His son, George M. Woodruff, built a house next door in 1855. His grandson, James P. Woodruff, later lived in the 1829 house.
Charles Phelps Williams (1804-1879) was a wealthy shipowner and businessman in Stonington. A ship master by 1825, he was soon involved in seal fishery and, when the sealing industry declined, he turned to whaling. According to Hurd’s History of New London County (1882), Charles P. Williams
was one of the largest individual ship-owners engaged in that important pursuit. With its decadence he withdrew from active commercial life, and was one of the first corporators under the State laws of the Ocean Bank of Stonington, of which he was elected president, and whose immediate and continued prosperity was largely due to his admirable management. In 1856 he went to Europe with his family, and resigned the presidency, but on his return he was elected first director, a position which he retained in the reorganization of the bank as the First National.
Mr. Williams took an active part in the building of the Providence and Stonington Railroad, and was for many years president of that corporation.
His keen business foresight had at an early period in the development of the West convinced him of its importance and future greatness, and he became largely interested there. The management of his accumulating property occupied the later years of his life, and he withdrew entirely from active business. I In 1878 the severe strain of a life of intense mental activity culminated in failing health, and on Oct. 28, 1879, he died of a rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain. […]
One of the most marked features of his personal character was the thorough simplicity of his life. He never sought office of any kind. A man of distinguished and commanding presence, of most courteous and polished manners, he was averse to all ostentation and avoided public life. His integrity was spotless, and in the management of all the vast interests which he controlled, with the innumerable attendant possibilities of error, his reputation stood always above reproach. A man of generous impulse, his charities were as unostentatious as his life, and in his death the poor lost a true and a liberal friend, and the State an upright and valued citizen.
In 1840, his homestead on Water Street was moved to 39 Main Street, where it was remodeled in the Greek Revival style and enlarged with two side wings.
The brick Greek Revival style house at 105 North Washington Street in Plainville was built about 1853 by George W. Eaton. Starting out as a farmer, Eaton purchased the gristmill of Hiram Hills, eventually developing it into a commercial grain and feed mill in the 1870s. The business was continued by his sons under the name Eaton Brothers. The house has had a porch since the later nineteenth century.
The Stick-style house at 348 Hopmeadow Street in Simsbury was built in 1879 on the site of a c.1679 house, built by John Pettibone, Sr. The house was later owned by Rosetta Pettibone Bestor (1769-1825), wife of Dr. John Bestor. After her death, it was purchased by John Owen Pettibone in 1826. A large landowner, he was a probate judge of Simsbury and served in the State Senate. After his death in 1876, the property passed to his niece, Charlotte Pettibone Winslow, who tore down the old house and built the present one. She was the widow of Rev. Horace Winslow, who had retired and moved to Weatogue. According to the Commemorative Biographical Record of Hartford County (1901):
Mr. Winslow was married, May 8, 1850, at the Church of the Puritans, New York City, by the pastor, the Rev. George B. Cheever, D.D., to Charlotte Henrietta Pettibone, daughter of the late Capt. Jonathan and Mrs. Fanny Rosanna (Phelps) Pettibone, of Simsbury, Conn. Mrs. Winslow has for more than fifty years been a worthy and sustaining helpmate to her husband, and has always been interested in his work. She is of a kind and lovable disposition, and her devotion to her husband and children is unsurpassed. She was born at Weatogue, Simsbury, and was only three years old when she attended her first school, was a pupil of various private schools, and was graduated at the age of sixteen at Hartford Female Seminary, with first rank in her class. She also took courses in French, Music and Art while residing in Hartford, and later at New York City, being for a time a pupil at the private school of Madame Okill. About the year 1844, Miss Delia Bacon, of New Haven, sister of Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D., conducted a class of young ladies in higher branches of study, This class Miss Pettibone joined, giving special attention to the Bible, to Shakespeare, and to philosophy, and the few months spent in New Haven were most delightful and profitable, as Miss Bacon was a lady of rare ability and attainments.
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