Built around 1850, the former house at 9 Maple Street in Kent is now used as offices. An example of a gable-fronted Greek Revival-style residence, in 1870 (according to the census) it was the home of Moses Smith, his wife Elvira and daughter Josie (he is also shown as the owner in the 1874 map of Kent). Smith, a wealthy businessman, was a partner in the commercial establishment of Smith & Page, which was located on North Main Street across from the railroad depot.
The Italianate-style former house at 50 North Main Street in Kent was built circa 1850. It is associated with the prominent Hopson family, who were wealthy farmers and iron merchants in Kent in the nineteenth century. It is identified as the residence of George Hopson in an 1874 map of Kent. In more recent years, the house was converted to become a branch of the New Milford Savings Bank (which became NewMil Bank in 2000) and is now a branch of Webster Bank (which acquired NewMil Bankcorp in 2006).
Designed to fit in with the many historical nineteenth-century buildings at Mystic Seaport, the museum’s MIldred C. Mallory Building was erected in 1963 using stone from a house in the Fort Rachel area of Mystic that had been destroyed in the 1938 hurricane. Serving as Mystic Seaport’s members’ lounge and membership office, the building named for Mildred C. Mallory (1897-1961) as a memorial to honor her efforts for the museum’s membership program. The first floor is covered with granite ashlar and the second floor with clapboards.
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The stone house at 637 Bantam Road in Litchfield, which is now a restaurant, was built in circa 1849 by Benjamin Bissell, who had acquired the land in 1840. He sold the house in 1850 to Abel H. Clemons. Stone houses are uncommon in the area, but around the same time Benjamin was constructing this house, Henry B. Bissell used granite from the same quarry to build the stone at 202 Maple Street. The house has limited stylistic elaboration, except for a prominent Italianate-style hip roof with a monitor/cupola. After 1875 the house was owned by the Brundage family.
In 1797, Episcopalians in the Bantam section of Litchfield organized a new parish, originally called the Second Episcopal Society, which separated from the town’s First Episcopal Society (now St. Michael’s Church). The new parish‘s original building, known as the West Church, was located on a rise near the intersection of Bantam Road and Maple Street known as Church Hill, across from the Bantam cemetery. The parish’s current church, dedicated to Saint Paul, was built in 1843 and was consecrated by Bishop Thomas C. Brownell on November 1, 1844. The Greek Revival-style building, located at 802 Bantam Road, was extended to the rear with an addition constructed in two stages: an undercroft built in 1951-2 and a second story completed in 1962-3. The church has six Gothic-style stained glass windows that were installed in 1885-6. A more detailed history of the church can be found in this PDF document.
The hip-roofed house at 19 Gravel Street in Mystic was built in 1861 by Capt. John E. Williams. His earlier house on the site, built in 1844, was moved to make way for the new house. Capt. Williams was known for being the captain of the clipper ship Andrew Jackson, which was called the “Fastest Ship in the World.” Built by the firm of Irons & Grinnell in Mystic, the ship made a famous run in 1859–1860 around Cape Horn from New York City to San Francisco, which was performed in 89 days and 4 hours. The only other square-rigged ship to perform an 89-day run driving from New York City to California was the Flying Cloud, an extreme clipper which did so twice (in 1851 and 1854), the faster of these times being 89 days and 8 hours. Many consider this to be the record passage, because it was for a completed voyage, anchor to anchor, while the Andrew Jackson‘s time was pilot to pilot as the ship had to spend the night waiting for a pilot boat and did not actually tie up at a San Francisco wharf until the next day.
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The house at 618 Main Street in Portland was erected in 1807 for Jeremiah Gildersleeve (1781-1857), a ship carpenter and navigator who was a member of the famous Gildersleeve shipbuilding family. He married Lucy Ann Cone in 1804.
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