Deacon Robert Palmer House (1884)

One of Noank‘s most memorable buildings is the grand Victorian residence at 81 Pearl Street. It was erected in 1884 by Robert Palmer, a deacon in the Noank Baptist Church. Robert Palmer (1825-1913) and his brother John developed the Palmer Shipyard (now known as the Noank Shipyard) begun by their father, John Palmer, Sr. Robert Palmer is featured in “The Village Feudists,” one of the stories in Theodore Dreiser’s Twelve Men (1919). After John’s death in 1879, Robert brought his son, Robert, Jr., into the partnership. Robert Palmer, Jr. would run the shipyard until his death in 1914. Deacon Palmer’s house displays a variety of Victorian-era stick-style elements and “gingerbread” trim. The porch’s wood decoration includes a rail and frieze made of panels with geometric cut-outs and the porch screen consists of fifteen panels, each with an intricate design depicting scenes from Aesop’s Fables. The second-floor balcony is also an exuberant example of the woodworker’s art. The house remained in the Palmer family for many years: Deacon Palmer’s granddaughter, Grace Knapp, lived in the house from 1923 until shortly before her death in 1959. She sold it to E. William Gourde and his wife, who had long admired the house. They restored and painted the home for the first time in fifty-five years. The house was sold again in 1970 and in 1992.

Willimantic Linen Company Stable (1873)

One of the structures that make up the former American Thread Company complex in Willimantic is a former stable, which housed horses, wagons and hay. It was constructed in 1872-1873 by the Willimantic Linen Company, original builder of the mills that were taken over by the American Thread Company in 1898. Like the adjacent mill buildings, No. 1 and No. 2, the stable was constructed of granite gneiss in the Romanesque Revival style. Because the building is located along a slope leading the nearby river bank, the basement level is visible on the south side (facing the river), but not on the north side.

Crofut Block (1876)

The National Register of Historic Places notes that the Crofut Block, located at 253-255 Main Street in Danbury, is a good example of Italianate commercial architecture. It provides a date of 1876 for the building and notes that the heirs of the original owners sold the property in the 1890s. The block consists of two attached buildings at 253 and 255 Main Street. Town property listings give a date of 1896 for the section at 253 Main Street. The interior of the store at 255 Main Street retains an original pressed tin ceiling.

Gull School (1790)

The Gull School, also known as the Gott School or District Six, is a one-room schoolhouse that once served the southeast section of the Town of Hebron. It was originally located at the northwest intersection of Grayville Road and Old Colchester Road. Built in 1790, it burned down and was rebuilt in 1816, continuing to serve as a school until it closed in 1919. It reopened in 1929 and then continued as a school until 1935. It was sold by the town a decade later and the new owner put it up on blocks. A decade later it was moved to a field where it stood for many years. In 1971 Henrietta Green, who taught at the school from 1930 to 1931, moved the building to the property of the Green family in the Amston section of town, on Church Street, near the intersection with Niles Road. For the next thirty years she welcomed school groups to visit the building, which she had refurnished to appear as it had been during her time teaching at the school. The Green family deeded the school to the town, which then moved it in 2001 to its current address at 8 Marjorie Circle. Three years later the interior of the school was restored for the Hebron Historical Society as an Eagle Scout project by Will Aubin and in 2005 the exterior was restored as an Eagle Scout project by Alex Breiding, both with help from Hebron Troop 28 Boy Scouts.

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Josiah Boardman House (1734)

Josiah Boardman (1705-1781) was one of the earliest settlers of the Westfield section of Middletown. He acquired land there in 1727, but is thought to have built his house (at the current address of 953 East Street) circa 1734, the year he married Rachel Cole. The house was later expanded, probably at an early date, with a two-bay addition to the north of the original five-bay section. The house also has a modern garage. Josiah Boardman is described as follows in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903):

Josiah Boardman, the third in the above named family, removed from his native town of Wethersfield to Middletown and settled with the Westfield Society November 29, 1727. Samuel Galpin, of Kensington parish, Middletown, sold to Josiah Boardman, of the same parish, IOO acres of land in the northwest corner of Middletown. The farm of his brother, Edward, lay next to it. Josiah and wife joined the Kensington Congregational Church, which was nearer their home than that of Middletown, and he held membership in this congregation at the time of his death, January 29, 1781. On August 5, 1734, he was married to Rachel Cole, who was born in 1712, and died February 29, 1782, the mother of ten children[.]

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Woodbridge Pizza (1898)

Woodbridge Pizza in Manchester is the most recent occupant of a building erected c. 1898. Commercial structures have occupied the site, at 489 Middle Turnpike East, since the early nineteenth century. At the time the area was a village known as Manchester Green. Its settlement predated the incorporation of Manchester as a town in 1823. The community’s post office, dating to 1808, was originally located across the street in the Woodbridge Tavern, but had been moved to the store by Wells Woodbridge. Located next door is a house built by Wells’ brother, Deodatus Woodbridge. Woodbridge and Keney operated the store in the 1840s. and E. P. Hatch had a store and post office in the 1860s. At one point the store was owned by J. B. Williams, who would later found a famous soap factory in Glastonbury.

Miller-Abel House (1848)

At 116–118 Way Road in Middlefield is a Greek Revival-style house, originally erected circa 1846 as a two-family house by Watrous I. Miller (1822-1885) and William P. Abel (1811-1848), on land the former had acquired from his father Jeremiah the year before. In 1846 Watrous sold the property to his brother Isaac W. Miller (1819-1891), with Abel (who was Watrous and Isaac’s brother-in-law) retaining a half interest in the house. The western wing of the house may have functioned as a tin shop used by Isaac, who was a tinsmith.