Around 1810, John Sheldon built a house in Mansfield Center, on what is now known as Storrs Road, on land he had purchased from Benjamin Storrs. At one time, the house had a Greek-style entry portico, which was replaced by the current porch in the late nineteenth century. Sheldon, a saddle maker, was related to the famous Sheldon family of Deerfield, Mass.
The Altnaveigh Inn and Restaurant, on Storrs Road in the Spring Hill area of Mansfield, is located in a colonial house built by Isaac Sargeant, on land given to him by his father, John Sargeant, probably in 1734. The house was later owned by Dan Storrs, who purchased it from Sargeant’s widow in 1794. It was later bought by Azariah Freeman and remained in his family for over a century. It may also have, for a time, been occupied by the miniature portraitist, George Freeman. In 1951, it was purchased by Edith McComb, who named it Altnaveigh, Gaelic for “hill top.” For much of the last century it has been an inn and restaurant.
Daniel Crocker built a house on Storrs Road in Mansfield Center in 1794, which he briefly operated as a tavern. After declaring bankruptcy, he sold the house in 1799 to Rev. John Sherman, minister of Mansfield’s First Congregational Church. In 1805, Sherman published One God in one person only: and Jesus Christ a Being distinct from God, dependent upon Him for his existence, and his various powers; maintained and defended, which has been described as “the first formal and elaborate defense of Unitarianism in New England.” Facing efforts by his Trinitarian congregation to dismiss him for his beliefs, Sherman left Mansfield in 1806, moving to New York state where he would become the founder of the Trenton Falls Resort. His house continued to serve as First Church’s parsonage until 1953.
The 1895 William Grant House, at the intersection of Prospect and High Streets in Willimantic, was built in the Queen Anne style, featuring elements of the stick style. It is one of the many Victorian houses for which the city of Willimantic (a “census-designated place” in the town of Windham) is known. The house is currently owned by Eastern Connecticut State University and is used as an alumni house. It will be part of Willimantic’s 2008 Home Tour in June.
Miles Lewis built in 1801-1802 for his new wife, Isabinda Peck Lewis, on Maple Street in Bristol, is now the home of the American Clock and Watch Museum. Lewis was the son of Abel Lewis, who owned the Lewis Tavern. While Miles Lewis and his wife had no children, a niece of Isabinda came to live with them, and Peck descendants lived in the house until 1952. The next year it was bought by the Bristol Clock Museum. In 1956, a new wing was added to the museum, constructed with wood paneling saved from the 1728 house of Ebenezer Barnes.
Miles Lewis Peck was the president of the Bristol Savings Bank. His 1881 house, on Summer Street in Bristol, was designed by his brother, the Waterbury architect Theodore Peck. The house was built in the Queen Anne style, with decorated barge boards in the Gothic Revival mode.
Elbridge S. Wightman of Bristol owned a distillery and built a Queen Anne-style house on Summer Street around 1890. The Hall House, next door, is also a Queen Anne built around the same time, but is less ornate in its ornamentation than the Wightman House.