Buckingham-Hall House (1760)

The Buckingham-Hall House at Mystic Seaport was erected circa 1760 in what is now Old Saybrook by the Buckingham family. The house, which was located near the ferry crossing at the mouth of the Connecticut River, was purchased by William Hall, Jr., son of a New York import merchant, in 1833. When construction of a new highway bridge across the river threatened it with demolition in 1951, the house was presented to Mystic Seaport by the State Highway Department. It was shipped by barge to its present location, where it was reconstructed and refurnished to represent the lifestyle of the Buckingham family in the 1810s. In 1994, the house was re-restored and reinterpreted to represent the Hall family.

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North Guilford Congregational Church Parsonage (1824)

Now a private residence, the house at 145 Ledge Hill Road in Guilford was built in the early 1820s to serve as the parsonage of the North Guilford Congregational Church (an earlier parsonage was auctioned off in 1807). The Federal-era house shares a number of architectural similarities with the church, which was erected just a few years before. The first minister to occupy the parsonage was Rev. Zolva Whitmore (1792-1867), who was active in the Underground Railroad. Future landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) boarded with Rev. Whitmore when he was seven years old.

William Hubbard Atkins House (1840)

The Greek Revival-style double house at 93-97 Broad Street in Middletown was built c. 1840-1841 by William Hubbard Atkins, who owned the Hubbard Hardware Company. In 1853, Elijah Loveland, owner of a livery stable, bought the south half of the house. It remained in the Loveland family while the north half had a number of owners until 1904, when Dr. John E. Loveland acquired ownership of both halves. Dr. Loveland had his medical practice in the building. In 1960, the American Red Cross acquired the building from Dr. Loveland’s widow and occupied it for many years.

Daniel M. Tyler House (1840)

At 49 Camp Bethel Road in Haddam is a Greek Revival house erected by Daniel Melvin Tyler (1804-1868) shortly after he acquired the land, south of Rutty Creek, in 1839 from Heman Tyler. It was part of the old house lot of Daniel M. Tyler’s great-grandfather, Nathaniel Tyler (1699-1744). Daniel Tyler married Dolly Shailer, sister of Florilla Shailer, who lived with her husband Jared Shailer on Bridge Road. Daniel and Dolly’s youngest sons, Albert and George, both attended Wesleyan University and Yale Law School.

In 1908, the family sold the house to Emil Schutte, whose main residence was on Middlesex Turnpike. One of Haddam’s most notorious residents, Schutte ran a gas station and grocery store on Middlesex Turnpike and served as town constable and tax collector. He also engaged in shady real estate deals and terrorized his wife and seven sons. In 1921, he was put on trial for murdering four people in Haddam. After he was declared guilty, Schutte attempted suicide at the Haddam jail, but he was eventually hanged at the state prison in Wethersfield on October 22, 1922.

Frankenstein-Hemphill House (1887)

 

 

In 2013, local Pawcatuck teen Connor Beverly wrote a book entitled On the Corner of William and West Broad: A True Example of Aristocracy in Pawcatuck. It details the history of the house at 140 West Broad Street, which was built in 1887 and was in the Eastlake style. Beverly was inspired to write the book by a package of letters and photo negatives he purchased on eBay. They were formerly the property of Sally Frankenstein, a young girl who lived in the house. Later owned by the Hemphill family, who sold it in the early 1970s, the house was restored in the 1980s and was for some years the Sage House Bed and Breakfast.

Update: As noted in the comment below, the house was built based on a mail order design by Michigan architect D. S. Hopkins. It is very similar to the house by Hopkins in the illustration below: