Elijah Barber House (1790)

The Elijah Barber House, built in 1790, is at 227 Windsor Avenue in Windsor. Elijah Barber was a farmer who, like others at the time on Windsor Avenue, also made bricks. In 1798, John Warner Barber, the second of six children of Elijah and Mary Warner Barber, was born. He would take on additional farm work after his father’s death, in 1812, but was soon working as an apprentice to Abner Reed, an engraver in East Windsor Hill. Barber would become an artist and historian, writing Connecticut Historical Collections (1837), A History of the Amistad Captives (1840), Massachusetts Historical Collections (1848) and History and Antiquities of New Haven, Conn. (1856). The Barber House was later owned by the Wilson family for over a century. The house was converted into the Second French Empire style in 1878, with the addition of a new porch and mansard roof.

The Terence McGovern House (1875)

At the corner of Albany Avenue and Center Street in Hartford is a Second Empire-style house, built around 1875. The earliest documented owner was Terence McGovern. At the time of the First World War, he both lived and operated a saloon in the building, at a time when the surrounding Clay Hill neighborhood was heavily Irish. The house’s upper floors retain original decorative features, while the ground floor has been converted to commercial use. (more…)

Daniel Basset House (1775)

The Daniel Basset House, north of the Green in Monroe, was built in 1775. The house has large second-floor ballroom where, according to local tradition, a ball was held on June 30, 1781, to welcome the Hussars of the French mounted Legion led by the Duc De Lauzon (pdf). Lauzun’s Legion, which was protecting the southern flank of the main French army under the Comte de Rochambeau, was camped just south of the village center of New Stratford (now Monroe). The French would soon march to fight in the Siege of Yorktown. The Basset House, located near Masuk High School, maintains much of its historic appearance, with early nineteenth-century decoration around the entrance.

William Loomis House (1795)

The William Loomis House (also known as the Deacon Warner House) in Windsor was built on the corner Broad and Elm Streets, facing Broad Street Green, in the 1790s, or perhaps as late as 1805. Horace Clark moved the house to 31 Elm Street around 1897, detaching the house’s kitchen ell, which was the earlier Deacon John Moore House, now next door to the Loomis House at 37 Elm Street. Clark sold the house to Dr. Clyde A. Clark in 1906.

Deacon John Moore House (1664)

John Moore, ordained a deacon in 1651, was one of the original settlers of Windsor, arriving in 1635 with the Dorchester group, led by the Reverends Maverick and Warham. Moore was a woodworker associated with the “Foliated Vine Group” of seventeenth-century chests. Moore’s house, built around 1664, originally stood on the east side of Broad Street Green. In the late eighteenth century, the large house of William Loomis was built on the west side of the Green and the old Deacon Moore House was moved and attached to the rear of the new house as a kitchen ell. By the end of the nineteenth century, the combined house was owned by Horace Clark, who detached the ell around 1897 and moved it to 37 Elm Street. In its new location, the Moore House originally had its gable end to the street, but was later moved to face the street. The house originally had the large center chimney typical of First Period Colonial houses.

The Williams-Salter House (1711)

The oldest surviving house in Mansfield Center is the Williams-Salter House, built around 1711. It was first the home of Rev. Eleazer Williams, Mansfield’s first settled minister and the son of Rev. John Williams, who was famously taken to Canada, along with five of his children, after the Raid on Deerfield in 1704 (Eleazer was away at school at the time). Eleazer Williams resided in the house until his death in 1742. He was succeeded as minister by Rev. Richard Salter, who married Williams’ daughter Mary in 1744 and purchased the privately-owned parsonage in 1745. Rev. Salter and his brother, John Salter, who also settled in Mansfield, were from a prominent Boston family. Richard Salter, one of the most respected ministers in Connecticut, served in Mansfield until his death, in 1787. The property also has a notable English-style barn.

The James Curtiss House (1737)

The James Curtiss House is a saltbox home on Maiden Lane in Durham. Curtiss purchased the land on which his house stands in 1722 and the house was built sometime between 1737 and 1761, when deeded half of his property to his son, Nathan Curtiss. Nathan was killed in the Revolutionary War in 1776 and his son, James, who inherited the property, was killed in an explosion at the gunpowder manufacturing mill he operated. His widow lived in the house until 1819, but his children migrated to New York and Michigan. In the 1820s, William H. Walkley bought out the shares of the various Curtiss inheritors.