The house at 131 Maple Street (originally 125 Maple) in Bristol was built in 1820. Among its residents were Walter O. Perkins, an assistant engineer for the Bristol and Plainville Tramway Company and Albert Nettleton, whose relative Wilford H. Nettleton, lived nearby.
The house built in 1899, on Summer Street in Bristol for Herbert J. Mills, is an example of how a historic home can suffer from later unsympathetic alterations. Mills, who was the president of the H.J. Mills Box Shop company, lived in a Queen Anne-style house that still stands. With the exception of the decoration of the front entry porch, the rest of the exterior has lost most of its original stick style decoration and roof brackets. The integrity of the house’s tower has also been compromised by an addition on the north side of the building.
Samuel Smith, a Bristol clockmaker, built his house on Maple Street, in Bristol’s Federal Hill neighborhood, in 1833 or 1834. The house is in the Greek Revival style, but also features excessively ornate elements of the earlier Federal style in the pediment. Smith made clocks for his business partner, Chauncey Boardman, who sold them in an adjacent house (the home that is now in between was moved there in 1914). The Boardman House, originally built for the clockmaker Benjamin Ray, is also Greek Revival in style.
Completed in 1794, the tavern operated by Abel Lewis and his wife, Ruth, on Maple Street in Bristol, served patrons into the nineteenth century and was the venue for public dances. Abel and Ruth were the parents of Miles Lewis, who lived nearby. In 1890, the property was purchased by the Bristol Builder Joel T. Case, who Victorianized the house, adding a roof dormer, porches and decorative trim and siding.
The Winthrop W. Dunbar House was built on South Street in Bristol around 1890. Winthrop Dunbar’s father, Col. Edward L. Dunbar, was a manufacturer of clock springs who was partners for a time (in the 1860s) with Wallace Barnes. After his father‘s death, Winthrop Dunbar, together with his brothers, Edward B. and William A. Dunbar, formed the Dunbar Brothers Company in 1872. This company was eventually taken over by the Wallace Barnes Company. The Italianate-style Dunbar House, which features a Second Empire tower, is now used for apartments.
Located on Center Street in Bristol, the William A. Kimball House of 1902 is a late example of a Queen Anne-style home. The tower’s projecting dormer is not a typical feature. Kimball was a purchasing agent for Albert F. Rockwell‘s New Departure Manufacturing Company.
The first St. Joseph Church, Bristol’s first Catholic church, was built in 1855. This original wood building, enlarged in 1879, was eventually replaced by the current granite church, dedicated in 1925. Designed by Joseph A. Jackson in the English Tudor Gothic style (or Perpendicular Gothic), the church is on Queen Street, facing Federal Hill Green.
