Gilead Hall was erected to serve as a public meeting and gathering place for residents of the Gilead section of Hebron. Built by the Gilead Hall Association, it was dedicated on September 4, 1905. It was used as a Grange Hall until 1950. In 1978 it was converted into a residence and has a much modified interior. Its modern address is 667 Gilead Street.
The house at 16 Barry Road in the Quaker Farms section of Oxford was once thought to have been built as early as 1680, but a date of 1740 is now considered more likely. In the early nineteenth century the house was owned by the Tomlinson family. It was used in the mid-nineteenth century by Preston Hinman for his shoemaking business. Greatly deteriorated by the early twentieth century, Ralph B. Pomeroy purchased it in 1947, removed a later dormer window and undertook the house’s restoration to a colonial appearance.
The farmhouse at 215 Nod Road in Avon was built c. 1850 by Chester Randolph Woodford (1814-1921), a dairy and tobacco farmer who lived to the age of 107. As a young man he was a clock salesman who once employed the services of a future president, as described in his obituary in The Jewelers’ Circular (Vol. LXXXIII, No. 20, December 14, 1921):
For several years Mr. Woodford traveled through New York, New Jersey and Maryland as collector and salesman for a clock manufacturing company and became thoroughly experienced in this line. In 1838 he went to Illinois, where he became associated with his uncle, Joseph Bishop, in the clock business. While successfully engaged at this work, Mr. Woodford was accused in selling clocks in the State of Illinois without a license. The matter was brought to court and Mr. Woodford engaged Abraham Lincoln to defend him. It was maintained at the trial that the clocks were manufactured in the State and it was therefore unnecessary to secure a license, and on this defense the case was won by Woodford and his counsel. It was while traveling in this State that Mr. Woodford stopped at a tavern where several men were discussing a name for a new county. Mr. Woodford told them that they had better name it after him and they did. In 1841, he returned to his native town.
He was a member of the East Avon Congregational church, president of the Avon Creamery, and a member of the General Assembly from Avon in 1858, having been the oldest living former member. When Mr. Woodford was 105 years of age a loving cup was presented to him by the members of the General Assembly in behalf of the State. Mr. Woodford was a republican in politics and he cast his first vote for president for Martin Van Buren. He had served in his home town as selectman, tax collector, assessor and justice of the peace.
Woodford was the first farmer in Avon to grow tobacco. He started with broadleaf for cigar wrappers and, with his son Prescott, began to grow shade tobacco in 1905. Tobacco was grown by the family into the 1980s. The farm, now called the Pickin’ Patch, then switched to growing vegetables and berries, but the property still has a number of historic tobacco sheds.
The earliest residents of the hip-roofed brick Federal-style house at 2 Washington Avenue – 1 St. John Street in North Haven are not known. Much altered over the years, the house was built c. 1825 on the site where the c. 1680 homestead of Nathaniel Thorpe once stood. In the later nineteenth century the house was the residence of Rev. William T. Reynolds, who was pastor of the North Haven Congregational Church from 1863 to 1893. The house is now an office property.
The summer cottage at 10 Linden Point Road in the Stony Creek section of Branford was built c. 1870-1890. It was renovated and expanded in recent years.
According to a guide to the South Britain Historic District, produced by the Town of Southbury, the house at 32 East Flat Hill Road, called the Downs House, was acquired as a residence by the minister of the South Britain Congregational Church in 1791. Does this relate it to the Moses Downs House at 639 South Britain Road? Further, the guide indicates that it was used in the 1870s for a school for girls and the lower level was once a tavern. The National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination for the South Britain Historic District dates the house to 1750 (based on assessor’s records) and indicates it was once a toll house.
The unusual building at 926-940 Farmington Avenue in Kensington was built c. 1875 by the brothers, Augustine F. Wooding and Ralph A. Wooding. They started a business making dog collars, later expanding to harness trimmings and saddlery hardware. In the 1896, they built a dam and pond and were granted a contract to supply water to trains on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. The building’s tower was then erected to serve as a water tower. Known as the Tower House, in later years the building was used as apartments. (more…)
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