Joseph Isham House (1765)

The house at 23 Hayward Avenue in Colchester was built in 1765 for Joseph Isham, Jr. after his marriage to Sarah, daughter of Dr. Oliver Bulkeley (who provided the land for building the house). Isham operated a store and served in the Commissary Department during the Revolutionary War. After his death in 1810, Sarah lived in the house until 1834. The gambrel-roofed building originally had a large center chimney, which was taken down around 1820 by Isham’s son, Ralph Isham, who replaced it with two smaller chimneys and used the extra stone to build the foundation of his new house, next door at 11 Hayward Avenue. From 1834 until his death in 1852, Benjamin Swan, Jr., lived in the house. Originally from Woodstock, Vermont, he had married Ralph’s daughter Ann and worked for the Hayward Rubber Company. Later owners substantially altered the colonial house, adding a tall central wall dormer projecting from the gambrel roof, a large cupola and a porch across the front of the house.

Colonel Avery Morgan House (1824)

The Colonel Avery Morgan House, at 219 South Main Street in Colchester, was built around 1824. Col. Morgan, born in 1781, was originally from Groton. He was a carpenter, merchant and farmer, who also served in the War of 1812 in the defense of New London. In 1802, he married Jerusha Gardner. Their first two children were born in Groton (they also lived for a time in Bozrah) and the other five children were born in Colchester, which they moved to in 1807. They later moved to Hartford, where Col. Morgan died in 1860 and his widow in 1861. The Colonel Avery Morgan House in Colchester is now a branch of Liberty Bank.

Joseph N. Adams House (1842)

The Joseph N. Adams House is a Greek Revival home on Hayward Avenue in Colchester. The house was built around 1842 by Pomeroy Hall, one of several he built and sold in the vicinity, this house being purchased by William Mooney. It was next sold to the widow, Mrs. Lucinda Armstrong in 1847 (she later married Jared Hurlbut and moved to East Hartford); next to Nathaniel Hayward in 1857; and then to Joseph N. Adams in 1866. Adams was a shopkeeper, Justice of the Peace and secretary of the Colchester Savings Bank. The house remained in his family until 1939. Please Read my latest article on the architecture of Connecticut houses, which focuses on Early Twentieth Century Houses: Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival & American Foursquare!

Former Colchester Baptist Church (1836)

Before Colchester’s Baptist Church joined with the town’s Congregational Church to form the Colchester Federated Church in 1949, the Baptists worshiped in an 1836 church building, which is still standing at 168 South Main Street. The original steeple was destroyed in the 1938 hurricane and was replaced by the current shortened steeple. The congregation decided to sell the church due to their having a diminishing congregation by the 1940s. The church was sold to Nathan and Israel Liverant, who opened an antiques businesses in the old church and converted it to commercial use. The entrance originally featured a central window flanked by two entry doors, but now has a central door with bow windows on either side. Nathan Liverant and Son Antiques continues to occupy the building today.

Colchester Federated Church (1842)

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Colchester’s First Ecclesiastical Society was formed in 1706 and a meeting house built on Old Hebron Road. The second meeting house was built in 1714 and the third in 1771. Needing repairs, the third meeting house was pulled down and replaced with the current Congregational church, built in 1841-1842. The church was renovated with a Victorian interior and stained glass windows in 1885, but was remodeled to its current appearance in 1929. The church’s steeple, like a number of others in Connecticut, had to be replaced after the 1938 hurricane. A Baptist church was built on South Main Street in Colchester in 1835-1836. In 1949, the Colchester Federated Church was established, combining the First Congregational and Baptist Churches. The Congregational church was now the united place of worship and the old Baptist church building was sold.

Nathaniel Hayward House (1775)

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Around 1775, Amos Otis built a house for Capt. Dudley Wright, on the site of the old house Wright’s father, Joseph Wright in Colchester. The impressive new house also served as a store, a tavern and, on the second floor ballroom, as the meeting place of the Wooster Lodge of Masons. Capt. Wright’s daughter Lydia married Dr. John Watrous in 1783 and the couple moved into the house’s second floor. Wright lived with them until his death in 1808. In 1823, Dr. Frederick Morgan married the Watrous’s daughter, Caroline Watrous. When Dr. Watrous died in 1842, they lived in the house until 1848, when they sold the house to Nathanial Hayward. Hayward was an inventor who had conceived a process of vulcanization of rubber by treating it with sulphur and a patent for this was issued in 1837 to Hayward’s colleague, Charles Goodyear. [For more information, see Some Account of Nathaniel Hayward’s Experiments with India Rubber which resulted in discovering the Invaluable Compound of that article with Sulphur (1865)]. Hayward had founded the Hayward Rubber Company and built a factory in Colchester in 1847. In 1885, the factory closed, but was reoccupied by the Colchester Rubber Company in 1888, which operated until it was absorbed by the United States Rubber Trust in 1892.

The house was embellished by Hayward, who added a bay window. He also presented his front lawn to the town as a park. The Hayward family lived in the home into the twentieth century. The last descendants to occupy the house in the 1940s wanted it to be razed, but it was purchased and saved, although not kept up for many years. It has recently been a bed and breakfast called the Hayward House Inn, but is now a real estate office.