Colchester

Ralph Isham House (1820)

Around 1820, Ralph Isham, a merchant, built an impressive Federal style house on Colchester Green, next to the home of his father, Joseph Isham. The house was next owned by Henry Burr, a full partner in the Hayward Rubber Company, who had married Isham’s daughter, Lucretia. After her death in 1857, Burr continued to own the house, but rented it out. Among the tenants was the Justice of the Peace and house carpenter, Judge William Finley. The house had other residents over the years, but has more recently been used for commercial purposes.

Bacon Academy (1803)

Bacon Academy opened in 1803 in a plain but imposing three-story brick Federal-style building in the center of Colchester. The school was established with a $40,000 donation left in the will of Pierpont Bacon, a prosperous farmer, who died in 1800. It was decided by the new institution’s trustees that the school would focus on preparing young men for college, while local boys could also attend to prepare to enter business careers. The school had its heyday in the first half of the nineteenth century, especially under the leadership of John Adams (1803-1810), who later became principal of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Charles Pomeroy Otis (1827-1837). Famous alumni of Bacon Academy include Stephen F. Austin, known as the Father of Texas, William Alfred Buckingham, Connecticut’s Civil War governor, and Lyman Trumbull, later a senator from Illinois. Bacon Academy’s national reputation declined in the early twentieth century, by which time it had become a more traditional privately endowed high school for the town of Colchester. It eventually passed from exclusive control by trustees to being supported by town tax money. Later additions to the building include the Victorian-era arched doorhood over the main entrance and a small rear ell, added in the early twentieth century. The current cupola is another nineteenth century addition, built over the original bell tower. By 1962, due to the growing student body, the students were moved to a new building. The original structure is still used by the town for school offices.

Coggshell House (1816)

UPDATE: This house has been demolished.

Update: The house is in danger of demolition!

In 1816, Nathaniel and Rebecca Coggeshall (Coggshell) purchased property on Broadway in Colchester from members of the Bulkley family. It is uncertain if the Coggshells or the previous owners built the house which is now on the site. Rebecca Cogshell died in 1848, at the age of 81 and her three daughters were owners of the house.

Nathaniel Foote House (1702)

The oldest house in Colchester is the Nathaniel Foote House, which has been moved several times, but is now located on Norwich Avenue. The house was begun in 1699 by Nathaniel Foote of Wethersfield, who was involved in the development of Colchester as a new community. Foote intended to settle in town, but ill health prevented him from completing the new house, which was finished in 1702 by his son, Nathaniel, shortly before his father’s death. It was soon occupied by the elder Nathaniel’s widow and four youngest children. In the early nineteenth century, the house stood on the Hartford Turnpike and was used as a post office. In 1896, the then neglected house was on Broadway and was bought by Mrs. Frederick G. Bock, who repaired it and gave it to the Colonel Henry Champion Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The D.A.R. moved the house to its present site in 1925 and restored it for use as a historical museum and chapter house.

Wheeler Block, Colchester (1872)

The Wheeler Block (also called the Old Town Hall) in Colchester was built as a commercial building by businessman Joshua B. Wheeler in 1872. Wheeler was a Mason and the third floor meeting room was used as a Masonic Lodge through the 1940s. In 1910, at a time when the town’s schools were overcrowded, the building became the Ransom School and was later used for town offices. At present, the building is vacant.

Benjamin Trumbull House (1790)

The Benjamin Trumbull House in Colchester was built sometime between 1790 and 1801. According to Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, Vol. IV (1907), by Franklin Bowditch Dexter:

Benjamin Trumbull, the only son of the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull (Yale 1759) who survived infancy, was born in North Haven, Connecticut, on September 24, 1769. He remained in New Haven for two years after graduation, filling the office of College Butler, and pursuing the study of law. On his admission to the bar he returned to the vicinity of the birthplace of his parents, and settled in Colchester, Connecticut, where he had a long career of usefulness. He was sent to the Legislature as a Representative eleven times between 1807 and 1831, and for about twenty years (1818-38) was Judge of the Probate Districts of East Haddam and Colchester.

Benjamin Trumbull’s son, Lyman Trumbull, was born and raised in the house. Lyman Trumbull later became a senator from Illinois and a founder of the Republican Party and an associate of Abraham Lincoln. He helped author the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ending slavery. The house is on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.