The Victorian-era house at 46 Main Street in East Hampton was originally the home of Harry W. Strong (1867-1917) and was built not long after he purchased the property in 1898. Strong was a mail agent on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He married Cornelia E. Goff in 1885 and the couple had two daughters, who sold the house to descendants of bell manufacturer N. N. Hill in 1942.
The Greek Revival house at 9 Depot Hill Road in the village of Cobalt in East Hampton was built in 1851, with a rear ell that was added later. The house’s original owner was James N. Tibbals, whose father, Thaddeus Tibballs, had started a successful oakum manufactory on Great Hill Pond Brook. Nearby Middle Haddam was a center of ship-building and oakum was used for caulking wooden ships. James and his brothers continued operating the business after their father’s death. The brothers also owned a store nearby. As described in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903):
James N. Tibbals was born in the town of Middletown, September 20, 1824. When he was but ten years old, however, the family mover across the river, and settled in the town of Chatham. His earliest educational training was obtained by walking two miles to a district school, although later he and the children received instruction at home, from Miss Melinda Hurlbut. On reaching his majority he was taken into partnership by his father, and continued to conduct the business after the latter’s death until 1899, when as has been already said, he retired. The elder Tibbals conveyed to the son four hundred dollars’ worth of real property when he reached age of twenty-one, in order that the latter might possess the property qualification then prescribed by law for voters. He first exercised the right of suffrage by casting his ballot for the Whig candidates, and since the organization of the Republican party has been one its most loyal members. Under Mr. Tibbals’ sound business management the oakum manufacture has greatly prospered. Originally not more than eight or ten hands were employed, while at present (1902), during the busy season, as many as twenty find employment, and the annual output exceeds four hundred tons. The raw material used is obtained largely from ropes and rigging of dismantled vessels, although much of it is imported, a single purchase not infrequently reaching fifty tons. Mr. Tibbals’ entire life has been passed in Middlesex county, with the exception of a year spent at Roxbury, Mass., where he engaged in business, but was forced to abandon his enterprise because of a disastrous fire. As a citizen he is broad minded and public spirited, enjoying the affectionate esteem of the community. He has served the town as a selectman and has also held various minor offices. He is a devout, consistent member of the Congregational Church, and a liberal contributor to the cause of religion. He was one of the founders of the society of that denomination between Cobalt and Middle Haddam, among original members of which were no fewer than twenty-six of the Tibbals family, and of which he was a deacon for twelve years.
The William T. Tibbals House, at 11 Old Middletown Road in the Cobalt section of the town of East Hampton, has an unusual shape that some have classified as an octagon but seems closer to an oval and is said to be known as “the round house.” The roof may have had an octagon shape at one time, but today it seems to have the sides of a dodecagon, or 12-sided polygon. The house was built in 1857, which was during the peak of the fad in construction of octagon houses, and it has the stucco exterior and bracketed roof typical of octagon house construction, so perhaps we could consider it a relative of the octagon houses. It was built for William Thadeus Tibbals, operated an oakum works (used for caulking wooden ships) on Cobalt Stream that had been started by his father, Thadeus Tibbals, in 1828. After William’s death, his widow lived in the house and his son, Irvin Tibbals, who continued the oakum business with William’s brothers.
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Elisha Cornwell (1721-1781) one of the original settlers of East Hampton, erected the house at 64 South Main Street (facing Daniels Street) in 1780 on land he had purchased the year before. He quickly sold the house to his daughter and died the following year. Amasa Daniels, Jr. purchased the property in 1803. His granddaughter, Caroline Brown Buell (1842-1927) grew up in the house. Her father, Rev. Thomas Gibson Brown, an itinerant Methodist and chaplain during the Civil War, had married Amasa’s daughter, Caroline. Caroline B. Brown, whose husband, Lt. Frederick W. H. Buell, died of malaria in the Civil War, would become a leader of the temperance movement, writing and lecturing extensively and serving as corresponding secretary of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. She retired to East Hampton where she died in 1927.
In the early nineteenth century, David Strong ran a tavern on South Main Street in East Hampton. His son, John C. A. Strong, a tobacco farmer, acquired the property after his father’s death in 1825. Thirty years later he replaced the old tavern with an Italianate-style house that still stands at 2 South Main Street. John’s sons, Clark and David, both served in the Civil War and later formed the Strong Manufacturing Company in Winsted.
Horatio D. Chapman (1826-1910), another Civil War veteran, acquired the house in 1869. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903):
Horatio D. Chapman was born August 7, 1826, in the town of East Haddam. His early educational advantages were such as were afforded by the district and private schools of his native town, but he improved them to the utmost, and before reaching his majority had qualified himself as a teacher, and in that vocation met with marked success, his experience covering a period of twenty years in all. [. . . .]
The attempted disruption of the Union by the seceding Southern States fired his patriotic blood, and on August 6, 1862, he enlisted in Company C, Twentieth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, serving with marked gallantry as corporal, until June 13, 1865, when he was discharged. His regiment was engaged in many of the most important battles of that great struggle, but he passed through them all unscathed, although more than once the cutting of his uniform or his hat by a Confederate bullet warned him, how closely Death hovered over the battlefield. Chancellorsville and Gettysburg were among the memorable engagements in which he participated. Later he followed “Sherman to the sea,” and tramped through the Carolinas and across Virginia’s “sacred soil” to Richmond. During these memorable campaigns, even while on the march, he found time to keep a diary, which—today—is of surpassing interest, and excerpts from which he is constantly asked to read when the “old boys” gather on Memorial Day to revive memories of the past and to lay chaplets upon the graves of the heroes of the Republic.
In 1866 Mr. Chapman came back to his native State, settling at East Hampton. For a year thereafter he was foreman in the Skinner saw-mill, and during the next year was in the employ of D. W. Watrous. For three terms he taught a village school in Chatham. Wearying of the teacher’s dais, he accepted an offer to become a traveling salesman for the bell and coffin trimmings industries of East Hampton. In this line of work he was successfully engaged for twenty-five years. In the Spring of 1899 he traveled for N. N. Hill, and he is still erect, hale and hearty, with undimmed mental factulties, at the age of seventysix years. He is a man held in high esteein by the community which best knows and appreciates his worth, and has filled various local offices with marked distinction and fidelity, among them being those of selectman (two years), member of the board of relief, and of the board of education for between twelve and fifteen years. In 1897 he served as doorkeeper for the General Assembly[.]
The Second Empire-style house at 26 Barton Hill Road in East Hampton was built in 1872 by Philo Bevin, who was born in 1813 in the William Bevin House across the street. Philo was one of four brothers who ran the Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company, which helped transform East Hampton into Belltown, USA and still manufactures bells today. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903)
A man of high moral principles, Mr. Bevin sought to promote every work calculated to advance the mental and moral condition of mankind, as well as to further the material welfare of his town and State. He was closely identified with the work of the local Congregational Church, in which he acted successively as clerk and treasurer. Being a stanch supporter of temperance principles, his life was an ideal one in the line of proper living. Politically he was a Whig in early life, and promptly joined the Republican party upon its organization. At one time he represented his town in the Legislature.
The house remained in the Bevin family until 1971. Alice Conklin Bevin (1893-1969), Philo’s granddaughter, occupied the house in the 1940s. She was a well-known artist who painted murals in the house’s third-floor bathroom and in the property’s barn, which she used as a studio. In 2015, new owner Dean Brown began a major restoration of the house into a bed & breakfast called The Bevin House.
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The Colonial Revival-style house at 142 Main Street in East Hampton has a Queen Anne-style octagonal side tower. The house was built in 1909 or 1910 by Mayo Smith Purple (1860-1942), a prominent businessman in East Hampton. For 35 years he worked for the Bevin Bell Company, eventually becoming the company’s secretary. Around 1914 he assisted in the reorganization of the Gong Bell Manufacturing Company, subsequently serving as that company‘s president for about 28 years. His other positions included president of the Watrous Manufacturing Company, treasurer and manager of the East Hampton Bell Company, and in the mid-1920s treasurer of the Bevins and Wilcox Line Company. Purple also served in the state legislature for a term in 1885-1886 and returned almost a half-century later for four consecutive terms from 1932 to 1940. In 1883 he married Gettine Louise Arnold, who died in 1935.
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