Bethel Public Library (1842)

Seth Seelye House, now Bethel Public Library

In 1831, P. T Barnum, started publishing a newspaper called The Herald of Freedom which stirred up a number of controversies. His uncle Alanson Taylor even sued him for libel, although the suit never went to trial. Another libel suit in 1832 did land Barnum in jail for two months. The prosecution was brought on behalf of Seth Seelye (1795-1869), a merchant and church deacon in Barnum’s hometown of Bethel whom Barnum accused of usury. In 1842 Seeyle built a grand Greek Revival-style house at 189 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel. In 1914 the house was donated to become the new home of the Bethel Public Library, which had been organized in 1909.

Former Mill Office in South Glastonbury (1720)

Former Mill Office, now a house.

The building at 9 Tryon Street in South Glastonbury may have been built as early as 1720. Around that time Thomas Hollister and Thomas Welles started a saw mill on the east side of nearby Roaring Brook. The mill was linked to the shipbuilding industry in the area at the time. By the mid-eighteenth century this early operation had developed into what was known as the “Great Grist mill at Nayaug.” The house at 9 Tryon Street may have been the bake house associated with that mill that is mentioned in a 1783 deed. According to one source, the Welles-Hollister grist mill and bake oven on Roaring Brook at Nayaug was completely destroyed in the great flood of 1869 and the mill had to be rebuilt on the northwest side of the bridge over Roaring Brook at the foot of High Street. Later, in the early twentieth century, there was a feldspar mill on the east side of the brook and the building at 9 Tryon Street may have served as the mill office of owner Louis W. Howe and then as housing for a spar mill worker’s family. Howe sold the house c. 1928 to Mrs. Aaron Kinne, who had the interior remodeled c. 1940 to designs by restoration architect Norris F. Prentice. It was remodeled a second time in 2002.

Rev. Hervey Talcott House (1820)

The house at 572 Main Street in Portland was built c. 1820. It was the home of Hervey Talcott (1791-1865) who was pastor of the First Congregational Church of Portland from 1816 until 1861 (he remained the nominal pastor until his death in 1865). During his pastorate, which was the longest in the congregation’s history, the current church building was erected in the late 1840s. According a biographical entry from 1876:

He was ordained Oct 23,1816, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Chatham (now Portland), Ct., where he remained until his death, a period of almost fifty years. He was able to discharge all the duties of this office until within five years of his death, when he requested to be relieved somewhat and a colleague was appointed. He furnished an excellent example of those ministers of whom New England has produced so many, characterized by prudence, fidelity and the ability to grow with their parishes, so that they spent their days over one church. Mr. Talcott’s characteristics were a sincere and childlike piety an unvarying devotion to his work, a well-balanced and clear head, a genial and kindly manner, an unusual discreetness of conduct, and before all men a blameless life. All these qualities combined to make him greatly loved and honored in Portland, and his pastorate was long and successful. It is a striking proof of his prudence that though his church was rent by many dissensions during his pastorate, he retained the respect and confidence of every one almost without an exception. As a preacher he was earnest, pointed, instructive and scriptural. He could never be called brilliant, but had those qualities of a speaker that wear well. Personally he always gave one the idea of a high toned [C]hristian [sic] gentleman. His piety was apparent, but not obtrusive, and his presence was always attractive to young and old, and yet an air of godliness about him was sufficient to keep improprieties and wrong-doing at a distance without a word of rebuke. In his family he was greatly loved and he gave example as well as precept in keeping a well ordered [C]hristian household.

Talcott Pedigree in England and America from 1558 to 1876, pp.179-180.

Temperance House (1761)

4 Chestnut Street, Bethel

Israel H. Wilson moved from Danbury to Bethel in 1836 and operated an undertaking business until 1851. He then opened the town’s first hotel, which was located in the house at 4 Chestnut Street. The house was built about 1761 and and at one time was a tavern, operated by P. T. Barnum‘s grandfather, Phineas Taylor, and then by his parents, Philo and Irena Barnum. Wilson was a advocate of the temperance cause: he named the hotel Temperance House and he also erected a temperance hall (no longer standing) just south of the hotel. By the late 1870s the hotel was known as the Bethel House or Bethel Hotel. Wilson retired from the hotel business in 1885. For some years the house was home to the Mead family and it is now a duplex. The house was much altered in the Italianate style in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Former Bantam Methodist Church Parsonage (1915)

A good example of the American Foursquare style is the house just east of the Market on Bantam Road in the Bantam section of Litchfield (its official address is 15 Tulip Drive). It was built in 1915 to serve as the parsonage of the Bantam Methodist Church. The church sold the property to the Bantam Lumber Company in 1973. The house was likely a mail order precut kit house produced by The Aladdin Company.

William T. Tibbals House (1857)

William T. Tibbals House
William T. Tibbals House

The William T. Tibbals House, at 11 Old Middletown Road in the Cobalt section of the town of East Hampton, has an unusual shape that some have classified as an octagon but seems closer to an oval and is said to be known as “the round house.” The roof may have had an octagon shape at one time, but today it seems to have the sides of a dodecagon, or 12-sided polygon. The house was built in 1857, which was during the peak of the fad in construction of octagon houses, and it has the stucco exterior and bracketed roof typical of octagon house construction, so perhaps we could consider it a relative of the octagon houses. It was built for William Thadeus Tibbals, operated an oakum works (used for caulking wooden ships) on Cobalt Stream that had been started by his father, Thadeus Tibbals, in 1828. After William’s death, his widow lived in the house and his son, Irvin Tibbals, who continued the oakum business with William’s brothers.

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