Zebulon Hale was a farmer in Durham. He built a Greek Revival house on Main Street in 1840, during a period of time (1839-1841) he was serving as a Justice of the Peace. The house, which he sold within a year of building it, has lost many of its original decorative features. The main entrance is located on a side addition to the house.
The Joseph Battell House, a 1799 mansion off Norfolk Green on the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate, has long been known as “Whitehouse,” its name predating that of the White House in Washington, D.C. The house was built by Joseph Battell, a wealthy merchant whose store had become the market center for the region. He built the house for his future bride, Sarah Robbins, daughter of Rev. Ammi Ruhamah Robbins, minister of the Congregational Church next door. One of their sons, Robbins Battell, was born in the house in 1819 and died there in 1895. An 1839 Yale graduate, Robbins Battell was an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, and a benefactor to his town and Yale University. Called by Frederic S. Dennis “the father of modern Norfolk,” Battell was also a composer and art collector, who had a picture gallery at Whitehouse containing the works of many notable American artists. His only daughter, Ellen, was raised in Whitehouse and later lived there with her second husband, Carl Stoeckel. They were great patrons of music, constructing the Music Shed on their Norfolk estate in 1906. Carl Stoeckel died in 1925 and when Ellen died in 1939, she bequeathed the estate as a trust, primarily for the performance of music under the auspices of Yale University. It continues as the home of the Yale Summer School of Music–Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Whitehouse, which has been enlarged and altered over the years, is currently being renovated.
The Captain James Thomas House, which has Federal-style detailing, is on Killingworth Road, in the Ponsett District of Haddam. Capt. Thomas served in the Revolutionary War and returned to Haddam to farm on land given to him by his father, Lt. Ebenezer Thomas, in 1786. After occupying a house on Lynn Road, he moved to the one on Killingworth Road, which was completed by 1795. Rev. William C. Knowles, in his book By Gone Days in Ponsett-Haddam, Middlesex County, Connecticut: A Story (1914), writes of the house:
Large two-story house erected by Capt. James Thomas, soon after the Turnpike was opened. Was at one time a tavern. Capt. Thomas died in 1842. A few years later his son-in-law, Mr. Alfred Brainerd, came here to live. The present occupant is an enterprising Bohemian, Mr. Paul Jiroudek.
The Sachem Farmhouse, at 15 Hopkins Road in Warren, overlooking Lake Waramaug, is just down the road from the Hopkins Inn. The house was built in 1870. In 1895, it was purchased by George Hopkins from the Beeman family. The Hopkins House was already being operated as a boarding house and George Hopkins also opened the Beeman House to guests, naming it the Sachem. It remained open until 1960. Still owned by Hopkins descendants, it opened again in 2007 as the Sachem Farmhouse Bed & Breakfast.
Arthur T. Bissell‘s house, at 74 Prospect Street in the Talcott Park neighborhood of Rockville, was built in 1880. Bissell was a businessman who was secretary and treasurer of the Rock Manufacturing Company and followed his father, Lebbeus Bissell, as secretary and treasurer of the Savings Bank of Rockville.
The Old Merrill House, at 130 East Main Street in Clinton, was home to many generations of the Merrill family. It was built in 1735 by Ben Merrill (there is a Ben Merrill Road in Clinton). The house had a second floor ballroom where dances were held; guests’ coats were kept under hinged seats. Today the house is used as offices.
The stuccoed Colonial Revival house at 301 Prospect Street in New Haven was built in 1907 for Pierce Noble Welch. He was Yale graduate (1862) who then studied in Germany. In 1871 Welch became treasurer of the New Haven Rolling Mill Company, which his father, Harmanus M. Welch, had founded. He later became president of the company and in 1889 he succeeded his late father as president of the First National Bank of New Haven. In 1891, Welch and his two sisters donated Harmanus Welch Hall to Yale. He was also president and a director of the Bristol Brass Company, a director of the Bristol Manufacturing Company, a vice-president and director of the New Haven Gas Light Company, and a director of the New Haven Clock Company. Pierce N. Welch, born in 1841, died in Berlin, Germany in 1909. The house was acquired by Yale in 1935 and served as a dormitory and later as offices. It is currently home to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
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