Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Houses

The Hiram A. Terry House (1788)

The Hiram A. Terry House, on King Street in Enfield, was built in 1788. The house is just northeast of Enfield’s King Street Cemetery and adjacent to a c. 1820 Federal-style house at 1684 King Street.

Burt Thompson House (1896)

The Burt Thompson House, on prospect Street in Willimantic, was built in 1896 and displays aspects of the Queen Anne, Italianate and Stick styles. It is particularly notable for its two-level porch featuring a variety of Eastlake style designs.

William A. Kimball House (1902)

Located on Center Street in Bristol, the William A. Kimball House of 1902 is a late example of a Queen Anne-style home. The tower’s projecting dormer is not a typical feature. Kimball was a purchasing agent for Albert F. Rockwell‘s New Departure Manufacturing Company.

Poisson-Belden Cottage (1741)

On the grounds of the Simsbury Historical Society (near the Phelps Tavern) is a eighteenth century cottage, which was moved there in the 1970s. It was originally built by John Poisson, a weaver, and was later owned by Horace Belden (there is a pdf file with information on Belden, who did a great deal for the town during his long life). The front of the house is left unpainted to display the original clapboards.

The Seth Cheney House (1910)

The Seth Cheney House, on Hartford Road in Manchester, was probably built sometime in the mid-nineteenth century and was remodeled in 1910. Located northeast of the Cheney Homestead, it is one of Manchester’s Cheney Mansions. A later owner (in the 1890s) was Mrs. Emeline Cheney (widow of Arthur Cheney), who had an interest in Spiritualism and was a friend and confidant of Isabella Beecher Hooker. Today, the house is a bed-and-breakfast known as the Mansion Inn.

Roger Butler House (1769)

Owned for more than 200 years by the Butler family, which came to Wethersfield via Hartford in the 1680s, the Roger Butler House, on Jordan Lane in Wethersfield, was built in 1769, although it may date to the 1750s or earlier. The house once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Welch-Parker House (1812)

Rev. Daniel Welch, minister from 1751 to 1782 of Mansfield’s North Society Church (now the Storrs Congregational Church), constructed a house on the Old Turnpike in Mansfield, on land he had purchased in 1755. As this parsonage was his own property (not the church’s), it was passed to his children, eventually becoming the home of his son and successor as minister, Rev. Moses Cook Welch, who had earlier studied law and became known as a great ecclesiastical lawyer. When the original house burned in 1812, it was replaced by the current building. In 1825, when Moses Welch died, his son, the prominent physician Dr. Archibald Welch of Wethersfield, sold the house and farmland out of the family. The property has had a number of owners and was was bought, in 1906, by Martin Hibbard Parker, who had married Edna Mason, a daughter of Charles Mason. The house was restored in the 1990s.