The home of Frank D. Cheney, of the Cheney family of silk manufacturers, is a 1902 Colonial Revival building that faces the Great Lawn in Manchester. Frank D. Cheney was the brother of Horace B. Cheney and Howell Cheney, whose houses are on either side of their brother’s mansion on Forest Street.
Originally a private residence, built around 1800, the dorm of Miss Porter’s School called “Humphrey” is a Federal Style building which is connected to the “Colony” dorm by a “Senior Room” built in 1970.
The Howell Cheney House is one of the mansions of the Cheney family of silk manufacturers in Manchester. Built in 1901, the house has a Forest Street address and is visible from both that street and across the Great Lawn from Hartford Road. The red brick Howell Cheney House is a Colonial Revival building, similar to the nearby Philip Cheney House, but not as symmetrical. Howell Cheney, who would serve as secretary and director of the family firm, was strongly interested in education, particularly vocational education. In 1915, he founded the Howell Cheney Technical High School in Manchester. Howell Cheney’s house is near to those of two of his brothers, Frank D Cheney and Horace Cheney. The house is currently for sale and is featured in a video on YouTube.
David Trumbull, a brother of Jonathan Trumbull, Jr and the artist John Trumbull, hired the builder Isaac Fitch to construct his house in Lebanon. Known as “Redwood,” the David Trumbull House was built in 1778-1779. He also had Fitch make reproductions of expensive English furniture for the house. Serving as commissary of the Colony of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War, David Trumbull provided supplies for General Rochambeau‘s army at Newport, Rhode Island in 1780 and supplied food and housing for the Duke de Lauzun‘s cavalry legion during their 1780-81 encampment in Lebanon. Redwood became Lazun’s headquarters during this period. David Trumbull’s son, Joseph Trumbull, was born in the house in 1782. He would later become the governor of Connecticut from 1849-1850. The building is now home to Lebanon Green Vineyards.
Jedediah and Ebenezer Huntington were brothers who served in the Revolutionary War. Sons of General Jabez Huntington, they successively occupied a house, built in 1765, on East Town Street in Norwich. Jedediah Huntington fought at Bunker Hill and eventually became a general. He married Faith Trumbull, the daughter of Governor Jonathan Trumbull. After the war, He became the Collector of Customs at New London and moved there. His brother, Ebenezer Huntington, then lived in the Norwich House from 1789. Ebenezer had also served in the war and later served as a Federalist Congressman in the House of Representatives. The semicircular window over the door and keystones over the first floor windows were later Federal style additions to the house.
A late example of a Colonial-style house in what is known as the Cape Cod style, the Elias Sprague House in Coventry was built in 1821 and is located on South Street, not far from the Nathan Hale Homestead and the Strong=Porter House. Very little is known about the house’s builder, Elias Sprague. The home is now a property of the Coventry Historical Society, although that organization is currently seeking to sell the house in order to maintain its other buildings.
Another example of an “American Foursquare” home, the house at 1643 Boulevard in West Hartford was built around 1900 in what was the town’s first modern subdivision, begun in 1896. The area is now the Boulevard-Raymond Road Historic District. The house’s current owners won a 2007 West Hartford Historic Preservation Award for their construction of a new one-story addition to their Colonial Revival-influenced home which is compatible with the original structure and matches it seamlessly.
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