The Noyes Farmhouse, located at 8 Lester Avenue in the Pawcatuck section of Stonington, was built c. 1840-1860. It represents an earlier rural period, before the other houses on the street were erected in the early twentieth century.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Town of Berlin had two town halls to serve the two sections of town, Kensington and Worthington. The building at 329 Percival Avenue, built circa 1855, was the Kensington Town Hall until 1907. In that year, the town acquired Brandegee Hall on Worthington Ridge to be a new Town Hall for all of Berlin (it served in that capacity until 1974). The former Kensington Town Hall became Percival School and is now a private residence.
At 116 Main Street in Ivoryton is the first of a number of company houses built by Comstock, Cheney & Company, manufacturers of combs and other ivory products. The company sold the house to a private owner, Giles Augustus Bull (1851-1930), in 1900. Bull was a foreman at the company who married Anna Comstock, grandniece of company founder Samuel M. Comstock.
Built circa 1858, the house at 39 Church Street in Noank was originally the home of William Gadson Rathbun (1831-1913), known as Captain Bill Gad Rathbun. He went to sea as a boy, but in 1849 headed to California for the Gold Rush. Returning after three years he resumed a life at sea, being master of several sailing vessels during his career. In the 1890s Rathbun served as postmaster during the second administration of President Grover Cleveland.
The house at 665 Tolland Stage Road in Tolland was built circa 1755 and may have been two houses that were later joined together. The property included an adjoining tannery, built in 1816 by George Hyde. In 1836, Moses Underwood bought the house and tannery and began to manufacture leather belting with his sons at the latter. The former Underwood Belting Company factory building was later deliberately burned by the Fire Department because it was deemed unsafe.
The house at 60 Chaplin Street in Chaplin was built in 1840. It was once the parsonage of the Chaplin Congregational Church, before the current parsonage at 47 Chaplin Street was used. There is also a historic barn on the property.
The house at the corner of Harrison Road and Woodhouse Avenue in Wallingford was built in 1755 by Willoughby Williams (1736-1776), just before he married Abigail Alling on Jan. 22, 1756. Williams served in the French and Indian War. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven county, Connecticut (1902), he
is supposed to have come from England, where he was born in 1736. He died in 1776. Where he settled in Wallingford is still known as the “Williams section,” and is still occupied by a large number of his descendants. He was a weaver by trade, and was a very active man, and exceedingly athletic; he was able to put his great strength and endurance to good use in the French war, when he was taken prisoner at Quebec, and confined by the French on board a ship. In the night he dropped into the river, swam ashore, and reached the English lines.
The house in Wallingford remained in the Williams family until the 1940s.
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