Located at 55 North Cove Road in Old Saybrook is the Robert Bull House, built c. 1700. Also known as “the House on the Bend,” it is the oldest house in the North Cove Historic District. It was probably remodeled and enlarged around 1740, as that is when the earliest gambrel roofs began to appear. After 1851 the house was the residence of David Phelps, a successful fisherman who made a living from the eels and clams found in the neighboring harbor.
The official property card for the house at 6 Huntington Avenue in Norwich dates the house to 1708, but the nomination for the Bean Hill Historic District states that it was built in the last half of the eighteenth century and names it the Roger Huntington House. This may be Roger Huntington (Comptroller) who is described in The Huntington Family in America (1915):
Roger Huntington, born February 1, 1784, in Norwich, Conn.; married, January 30, 1814, Ann, daughter of Benadam Denison. She was born in 1784, and died September 15, 1819. He married for a second wife, August 30, 1820, Amelia Matilda Lambert. He was engaged early in life in trade, and was a man of most unwearied industry, and a pattern for the nice method and accuracy with which he executed every trust. His moments, not employed in his business, were most actively devoted to reading and study. He rose to a high rank among the citizens of his native town, in all those qualities which secure public esteem and confidence.
He represented Norwich, and the Senatorial district to which it belonged, in the State Legislature, and was Speaker of the House of Representatives while in that branch.
He was Comptroller also of the State. He died at his residence in Bean Hill, Norwich, June 27, 1852. The general sentiment of the community, among which he had always lived, was well expressed in an obituary notice in one of the city papers. It says, “We are pained to record the unexpected death of our most respected friend and fellow citizen, the Hon. Roger Huntington, of Norwich Town. Mr. Huntington was no ordinary man; and his high character and superior talents justly entitled him to the confidence and trust reposed in him by his fellow citizens.” His wife, Amelia Matilda, died at Norwich, Conn., May 27, 1883.
The William M. Wheeler House is a Greek Revival structure at 77 Main Street in North Stonington. It was built around 1838. The Wheelers were prominent merchants and industrialists in North Stonington.
The house at 44 Main Street in Farmington is often dated to 1872 in the belief that a previous house on the property had burned down the preceding year, but it may be that this is that earlier house, built for Edward Whitman (1792-1862) c. 1851. Erastus Gay (1843-1912), a store-owner, acquired the property in 1871. Gay had married Grace F. Cowles, daughter of Francis Cowles, in 1867. Elizabeth V. Keep purchased it in 1916 and soon after willed the house to Miss Porter’s School. Once used as a dorm, it is now the school’s Colgate Health Center.
The house at 5 Judson Avenue, adjacent to the First Congregational Church in Woodbury, was built in 1829 by Benjamin D. Beecher. This is probably Benjamin Dutton Beecher, an inventor who built a steam boat propeller similar to the screw-propeller that would later be invented by John Ericcson. His career is described by Frederick J. Kingsbury in an article entitled “An Ericcson Propeller on the Farmington Canal” (The Connecticut Magazine, Vol. VII. Nos 3-4, 1902):
Benjamin Dutton Beecher was born at Cheshire, Connecticut, November 2, 1791, and was educated at the Academy there, the late Admiral Foote having been his school-fellow and life long friend. He learned the trade of a carpenter, and at the age of twenty-two, during the war with England, he invented the first fanning-mill for cleaning grain known to the world. This invention he patented May 13, 1816. In 1828 he was living in Woodbury, Connecticut, where several of his children were born. In 1830 or 1831, he removed to New York City. While living in Woodbury he received a patent October 20. 1830, for a grain-threshing machine. In New York he bought a steam tug-boat, which he commanded himself, and did a successful business and made improvements on the boat and engine. In 1832, when the cholera broke out in New York, he left with his family by packet for New Haven, and by canal to Cheshire. His son says that so great were the fear and the haste of their flight that they abandoned everything but the clothes that they wore, and that at some point they were quarantined for a considerable period in a barn. He then took up his abode in Cheshire, On the Mountain Brook road, near where the boat was built, and erected a shop with a water-power engine attached. When his dam broke away, being in a hurry to complete his boat, he invented and built a horse-power engine, which he patented in December, 1833. In one of his trips on the canal, Admiral Foote—then lieutenant—accompanied him.
Located at 275 Carrington Road in Bethany is a house erected by Beri Beecher (died 1886) as a weeding gift for his new bride in 1834. The house remained in the Beecher family until 1900. Wallace Saxton, who served as First Selectman of Bethany from 1945 to 1953, lived in the house from 1905 to 1950. The property has been known as “Hillside Acres” and more recently as “Pear Tree Farm.” The house has a large Georgian Colonial addition constructed in 1991.
The Andrews-Bailey-Knox House is a Greek Revival house built in 1840 at 2163 Main Street in Glastonbury. It was once the home of Virginia Knox (1909-2002) who worked for the Connecticut State Library for 32 years, retiring in 1966.
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