Main House, Rectory School (1795)

Now comprising part of the “Main House” on the campus of the Rectory School in Pomfret is a house erected circa 1795 for Thomas Grosvenor (1744-1825), a lawyer who served in the Revolutionary War. Wounded in his right hand at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Grosvenor ended the was as a Lieutenant Colonel. The house was remodeled and greatly enlarged in about 1885 by Thomas Skelton Harrison, a Philadelphia industrialist. In 1925, Rev. Frank H. Bigelow and his wife, founders of the Rectory School in 1920, acquired the Harrison estate to become the school’s campus. In the ensuing years they erected a complex of wood-framed colonial revival buildings on the estate, which has been the school’s campus ever since.

Postcard of The Rectory School (Main House)

Isaac H. Seeley House (1840)

House at 27 Main Street in Bethel

The house at 27 Main Street in Bethel was built circa 1840 by Isaac H. Seeley (1793-1880), the son and partner of hatter Nathan Seeley. He later operated his own company, I. M. Seeley & Son. His brother, the merchant Seth Seeley, lived in the house that is now the Bethel Public Library. The eastern section of Isaac’s house (on the left in the image above) is much older than the main block, perhaps dating to as early as 1795.

Greenhaven Inn (1901)

It looks like I posted this building too late. It was demolished a few years ago! A new building was completed on the site in 2022.

Later home to a business and much altered, the building at 595 Greenhaven Road in Pawcatuck was once a restaurant called the Greenhaven Inn. I’m not sure when the house was built (if it’s Colonial or Colonial-Revival). The real estate websites give a date of 1901 but that may not be very precise.

Postcards of the Greenhaven Inn

Thomas Eldredge House (1842)

31 Gravel Street in Mystic

Thomas Eldredge, and his brothers George and Elam, purchased land on Gravel Street in Mystic from their father in 1842. Thomas erected the house at 31 Gravel Street soon after. The three brothers were all shipmasters and mariners. Thomas was a captain for over 45 years and was known as “the Commodore of the Mallory line.” He sold the house when he retired. He moved to New York and maintained a summer home in Mystic on Prospect Hill. After a fire in 1879 the house’s original roof was replaced with a Mansard roof.

Hank’s Mill (1882)

The village of Hanks Hill in Mansfield was the home of silk manufacturing company of Hanks Brothers. The original mill, built by Rodney Hanks and his nephew Horace Hanks in 1810 and believed to be the first water powered silk mill in the United States, was purchased by Henry Ford in the 1930s and moved to the Greenfield Village open air museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Another mill building was destroyed by fire in 1882 and replaced by the building at 247 Hanks Hill Road, now much altered to serve as a residence. It is just across the street from the Hanks Reservoir. Nearby, at 233 Hanks Hill Road, is a former boarding house for mill employees, built in the early nineteenth century (or as early as 1789).

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