Built circa 1850 and much altered in later years, the house at 10 Chestnut Street in Bethel was the home of shoemaker Walker Ferry, who had his shoe store in the building next door at 12 Chestnut Street. By 1867 the house was the residence of William Judson, a hatter, who had married Emeline Judd in 1849.
A postcard in the collection of the Gunn Historical Museum in the town of Washington depicts the house at 250 New Milford Turnpike in the village of Marbledale in Washington, describing it as the Tomlinson Home. A real estate site gives a construction date for the house of 1860. Presumably this house is associated with the family of Philo Tomlison, who conducted marble quarrying in Marbledale in the early nineteenth century.
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The earliest part of the house at 613 Main Street in Portland was constructed in 1703 for Jonathan Warner. It was one room over one room with an end chimney (a style typical of Rhode Island). The house was enlarged over the years. Behind the northwest part was a section built in 1764 by sea captain Ithamar Pelton (1744-1806). The south part of the house was added in 1912 by William Gildersleeve.
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.
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.
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.
The Colonial center-chimney house at 353 Newfield Street in Middletown was built sometime between 1705/6, when Lt. Nathaniel Bacon (1674-1759) inherited the land from his father Nathaniel (an early settler of Middletown in 1653 who was born in England in 1630 and came to America in 1649), and 1759, when the property was mentioned in the younger Nathaniel‘s will.
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