Houses - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Elias Austin House (1743)

The Elias Austin House, also known as the Moses Austin House, was built around 1745 and stands on the west side of Main Street in Durham. Elias Austin purchased the lot in 1743 and the property passed to his wife and sons when he died in 1766. One of his sons was Moses Austin, who was born in the house in 1761. Moses Austin later left Durham and reached Texas in the 1820, where the government of Spanish-controlled Mexico granted him land to settle 300 Anglo-American families. Austin died in 1821, but his son, Stephen F. Austin, fulfilled his father’s dream, becoming known as the “Father of Texas.” The Austin House in Durham was sold out of the family in 1783 and has since had many different owners. The building served as Durham’s post office from 1909 to 1935. A front porch supported by pillars once wrapped around three sides of the house, but was removed sometime in the last two decades.

The Lines-Curtin House (1900)

On the corner of West Main and Cedar Streets in New Britain is a large Shingle style house, built around 1900 by Charles W. Lines, who ran a grist mill. Lines later moved to Newington and the house was purchased by John M. Curtin, partner in a furniture dealer and undertakers company. The house was the Curtin Funeral Home until the late 1960s and today is used as office space.

An advertisement in the Official Souvenir and Program of the Dedication of the Soldiers’ monument, New Britain, Conn., September 19, 1900.

The William G. Peck House (1867)

This is the thousandth post at Historical Buildings of Connecticut! To celebrate, you may have noticed the new poll at the top of the sidebar. Please vote!!! Today’s building is the William G. Peck House, which is on North Street in Litchfield and was built in 1867. William Guy Peck was born in Litchfield in 1820, graduated from West Point (pdf, p. 81) in 1844 and served in the corps of Topographical Engineers. He later taught mathematics at West Point and later at Columbia College, where he also taught engineering and led the Department of Mechanics in the School of Mines. He married a daughter of the mathematician, Charles Davies. According to an 1892 obituary:

He was the author of numerous works, including a mathematical dictionary, and text-books in arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, differential and integral calculus, determinants, mechanics, physics, and astronomy. His works are characterized by lucidity, conciseness and directness. His teaching was distinguished by the same excellent qualities. His full and exact knowledge of the subjects which he taught, his clear exposition and illustration of them, his enthusiasm, his solicitude for the advancement and welfare of the students, the humor with which he occasionally illumined his lectures, made his room an attractive one, and his courses sought after and enjoyed. It is within the personal knowledge of very many, perhaps the most, of those by whom this notice will be read, that no professor in the college was more beloved than he.

Tallmadge Store/ J.C. Wadsworth House (1784)

Benjamin Tallmadge, spymaster for George Washington during the Revolutionary War, moved to Litchfield after the war and became a successful merchant. His store, built around 1784, originally stood next to his home on Litchfield’s North Street. It was moved across the street around 1811 and incorporated into the house of J.C. Wadsworth, which still stands today on the east side of North Street.

David Smith Post Office (1852)

Rev. David Smith built a small post office building around 1852 which he operated next to his home on Maple Avenue in Durham. When he died in 1854, he was succeeded by his daughter, Catherine. When she married Henry L. Ellsworth in 1857, the building was moved to its current location on Main Street, across from the town green. In the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the old post office housed a succession of stores, eventually becoming a residence. The building has been altered, with an addition on the east end, facing away from the street.

The Rev. David Smith House (1803)

Rev. David Smith became the Congregational minister in Durham in 1799 and in 1803, he built a house on Maple Avenue, just north of the town green. He retired in 1833, after a sometimes difficult pastorate. In 1843, he leased his house and land to his two daughters and the fine Federal-style home has since been passed down through Rev. Smith’s descendants.

The Curtis Fairchild House (1741)

The former Spelman Hotel stands at the intersection of Main Street and Wallingford Road (formerly called Quarry Hill Road) in Durham. It was built as a house around 1740 (a sign on the house says 1741) by Curtis Fairchild, and sold just a few years later to John Jones. It was inherited by John Jones, Jr., who by 1767 was in serious debt and fled his creditors. The house ended up in the hands of Phineas Spelman, who turned it into an inn at the urging of the town. Spelman was reluctant to do so, because it was during the Revolutionary War and inflation had made currency almost worthless. He died in 1783 and his widow continued to operate the Spelnman Hotel, but it was finally closed by the town in 1793. The town was unwilling to license Elizabeth Spelman because there were now several taverns in Durham and town officials feared the effect on citizens’ morals. The house was owned in the nineteenth century by Daniel Bates and then by Parsons Coe, who altered it in the Greek Revival style, replacing the original gambrel roof with a gable roof. A front porch with six square columns was also added and the house was attached to an adjacent house. The Coe family owned the house until 1898 and the Harvey family from 1902 to 1954, when it became the property of Durham’s First Congregational Church. The house has recently been brought back to its eighteenth century appearance, again freestanding and with the removal of the porch and the addition of a restored gambrel roof.