Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Building Type

Bidwell Tavern (1880)

The Bidwell Hotel in Coventry was built in 1822 and closed in 1938. The hotel’s Tavern continues in business at 1260 Main Street, not far from the old hotel building. The Bidwell Tavern is located in the former office building of the E. A. Tracy Shoddy Mill. The company, which expanded greatly in the later nineteenth century under the leadership of Eugene A. Tracy, produced shoddy, a recycled wool made by shredding old cloth to be rewoven into a reusable lower-grade product. The mill complex grew to include twenty buildings, but it closed in 1929 and the town of Coventry took ownership of the property. The former office building was used as the Coventry Town Hall from 1934 to 1964. Today, a section of the Bidwell Tavern is an area called “the vault,” where town records were once stored.

Campbell & Babcock Mill House (1910)

Campbell and Babcock, a company that produced woolen textiles, erected a variety of worker housing in the vicinity of its mill in Pawcatuck. One of these was the mill house at 7-9 Palmer Street, erected circa 1870.

John Gladding House (1825)

The house at 11 Union Street in Deep River was built c. 1825 by John Gladding, a joiner (he may have constructed the house himself). Alphonso C. Pratt, who owned the house from 1911 to 1924, held patents for the design of a grommet and others for grommet-making apparatus.

Samuel Thorpe House (1701)

The saltbox house at 220 Thorpe Avenue in Wallingford may date to as early as 1701. At that time the property was owned by Samuel Thorpe, one of the town’s first settlers. He may have been a nonconformist who chose to live away from the center of town. The fact that the house is possibly old enough to be one of the three oldest houses in town was only recently discovered by a realtor in 2015. (more…)

Ensworth House (1805)

In the late eighteenth century, John Ensworth built a house at what is now 249 Route 6 in Andover. The current house at that address is nearly identical to the nearby Isaiah Daggett House, built in 1805, so it is likely they were both built around the same time. The property had remained in the Ensworth family: Jedidiah Ensworth was living in the house in 1860. There is also a historic barn on the property.

Calvin Willey House (1776)

The house at 41 Tolland Green in Tolland was built circa 1776. In the early nineteenth century, it became the home of Calvin Willey (1776-1858), postmaster and judge of probate, who served as a United States Senator from 1825 to 1831. Willey was chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture in the Nineteenth Congress. After leaving Congress, he returned to his law practice. The house was later acquired by Minnie Helen Hicks, who opened it as a guest house called Meadow Crest. It is now owned by the United Congregational Church of Tolland.

McDonough Hall, University of Saint Joseph (1936)

Saint Joseph’s College, recently renamed the University of Saint Joseph, in West Hartford was founded in 1932 by the Sisters of Mercy, a religious institute of Catholic women. It was the first liberal arts college for women in the Hartford area. Classes were initially held at Mount Saint Joseph Academy, before the college moved to its own campus. Sister Mary Rosa McDonough, the College’s first dean, oversaw construction of the original campus buildings. The Administration and Science Building, erected in 1936, was renamed McDonough Hall in her honor in 1969.