Houses

The Russell Shailer House (1827)

Around 1827 in the Shailerville section of Haddam, where many homes were built by the close-knit Shailer family, Russell Shailer built a Federal style home after his marriage to Huldah B. Arnold. At first, his father, Rev. Simon Shailer, continued to own the land on which the house was built and built a home for himself at the same time next door. When Simon, a Baptist minister, died in 1864, Russell, who was a deacon in the church, received full title to the property. Behind the house was the Shailer and Knowles factory, where stamped and pressed metal products were manufactured from the 1870s to 1914. The houses of both father and son continue to be owned by a descendant of Russell Shailer.

Noah Pratt House (1805)

In the eighteenth century, Hezekiah Pratt owned farm land in Essex, known as Cornfield Point, which stretched from Main Street south to the Connecticut River. When he died, four of his sons inherited land along the south side of Main Street where they built their homes. One of the sons was Noah Pratt, whose 1805 house was later sold to his brother, Asahel, in 1808 and then to Uriah Hayden in 1817. Uriah Hayden was the grandson of the Uriah Hayden, who ran the Hayden Tavern in Essex, and the great-grandson of Nehemiah Hayden, who had been a loyalist during the Revolutionary War. The house remained in the Hayden family until 1977 and is now used for offices.

Samuel Parsons House (1759)

Built around 1759, the Samuel Parsons House, on Main Street in Wallingford, once served as a tavern when stage coaches stopped there. Featuring many traditional colonial elements, the house is transitional in style because it also has features of the Georgian style, including its two chimneys and the way its rooms are arranged inside. Caleb Thompson bought the house in 1803 and built wagons, carriages, and coffins in his shop on the property. His granddaughter, Fannie Ives Schember, leased the house to the Wallingford Historical Society in 1919 and later left it to the Society in her will. Owned by the Society since 1932, today the house is a museum.

Erastus Kelsey House (1825)

The Erastus Kelsey House, on Main Street in Portland, was built in 1925. Born in Killingworth in 1792, Kelsey married Betsey Deane around 1814. She was the daughter of Phineas Dean, a tavern keeper who also lived on Main Street. Another daughter of Phineas Deane, Harriet, married William McKinstry, a wealthy Middletown merchant.

Smith-Hayden House (1834)

Another of the houses built by Gurdon Smith on Pratt Street in Essex is this one dating to 1834. The house was later owned by Richard Sill Hayden and passed to his son, Gilbert Burnet Hayden, who was a lighthouse keeper in Essex and died in 1929.

Gurdon Smith House (1818)

A Federal-style house, built by Gurdon Smith on Pratt Street in Essex in 1818, is one of several he built on the street. Smith was one of the developers of Pratt (then called New) Street, which was opened after the land north of Main Street, long owned by the Lay family, became available. The street runs between the original locations of Essex’s two successive ropewalks. Smith was a part-owner of the second ropewalk, which was located just north of Pratt Street.

Miles Messenger House (1785)

A beam in the attic of the Messenger House, 667 Cherry Brook Road in Canton, is inscribed with the words: “RAISED 1785 JUNE 20 MONDAY.” In the days when stagecoach used to pass by the house, it was used as an inn. Also, at one time, there was an apple orchard and cider mill on the property. Miles Messenger owned the house in the mid-twentieth century and, after the steeple of the Old North Church in Boston blew down during Hurricane Carol in 1954, Mr. Messenger gave a white oak from his farm to help rebuild it.