Built on Washington Street in New London in 1832, the Charles Culver House was the first of many to be constructed in its neighborhood by John Bishop. In 1804, Culver had owned a ropewalk adjacent to his home. When this business burned in 1834, he sold the property to a group of investors, led by John Bishop and Jonathan Starr, Jr., who opened a residential street, named Starr Street after the C. Starr and Company Soap and Candle Factory.
Ambrose Whittlesey was a sea captain who built his house in 1799 on Main Street in Old Saybrook. The ell of the house is earlier, dating to around 1765. The Whittleseys were civil leaders in Old Saybrook and founded the town library. In 1919, the house was acquired Grace Pratt, last surviving member of Ambrose Whittlesey’s family. In 1977, the house’s current owners bought it to become a home furnishings store, which has since grown into a shopping complex called Saybrook Country Barn.
Some readers of this site may be aware of the Connecticut town history links page I created. Each town has a page with links to relevant websites and online books. I have recently been working on a similar page for Massachusetts. So far, it only has a few towns (mostly ones where I’ve taken pictures of buildings). Some of the towns, like Cambridge, Springfield, Salem, Lexington and Concord have many links. Unsurprisingly, Boston has a massive number of links and a huge collection of online books on many different topics, which I have made easier to navigate with a number of internal links, listed at the top of the page. Please check out both the Massachusetts and Connecticut town link pages!
The Federal-style Whitmore Homestead, built around 1786, is at 20 Riverview Road in Rocky Hill. There is a small structure on the property thought to have been used as the town’s first post office. The house was also a stop on the Underground Railroad, with a hidden passage in the upstairs closet used by fugitive slaves.
The Fitch House is a Greek Revival home in Mansfield Center, built in 1836, which is now a bed & breakfast. The house was built by the architect and builder, Col. Edwin Fitch, who was hoping to impress his father-in-law, Dr. Jabez Adams and launch his career. Fitch later designed the Second Congregational Church in Coventry. Bankrupt by 1843, Fitch sold half of the house to Edmund Golding, who bought the entire house in 1848. Golding, who died in 1854, and Lewis D. Brown, who bought the house in 1865, were both Mansfield silk manufacturers. In 1906, the house was acquired by Carrie Amidon Havens, who later married Oliver Perry, a descendant of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. They enlarged the house, adding wings with porches on either side. The property also has two connected English-style historic barns.
The brick home of Samuel Dix in Wethersfield was built in 1780, or perhaps earlier in 1764, on Wolcott Hill Road near Wells Road. The house, which was also known as the Leonard Dix House, remained in the Dix family into the twentieth century. The interior was later completely altered from the original arrangement.
Albert L. Sisson was born in Bloomfield and became successful in Hartford operating a meat market in the Sisson Block, a building which once stood at Main and Sheldon Streets, and as a tobacco trader. In 1867, he built a brick Italianate house on his estate on Hubbard Street, which was renamed Sisson Avenue in his honor in the 1870s. He was also involved at the time in the founding of the Asylum Avenue Baptist Church. Sisson died in 1886 and his wife, Mary Gorton Sisson, died in 1898. The house was used for a time as a hospital for scarlet fever patients and in 1902 was acquired by the cathedral corporation of the Hartford diocese. Bishop Michael Tierney of Hartford gave the property to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd for use as a home for wayward girls. The house was expanded in 1905 and additional buildings, including Marian Hall and Euphrasia Hall, were constructed on the estate in 1920s. The “House of the Good Shepard” complex was sold by the Sisters in 1979 and today serves as subsidized senior housing.
Not much is known about the construction of the house at 646 Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield. Most likely built by 1800, it may date to much earlier. The house is associated with the name Martin Wells, perhaps an ancestor or relative of Judge Martin Wells, who lived in the Webb House starting around 1820 and hosted Tocqueville when he visited the Connecticut State Prison in Wethersfield in 1831. The Wells House on Wolcott Hill Road at one time had a front porch attached, which was later removed.