Essex

Richard Hayden House (1806)

Richard Hayden, an Essex shipbuilder and merchant, built the first brick house in town in 1806. He had earlier lived in the house which is now the Griswold Inn. Hayden was head of the Hayden Shipyard and he built a ship’s chandlery in 1813, which was later moved across Main Street. During the War of 1812, he built a privateer schooner, Black Prince, which he advertised in New York. This was one of the causes of the British Raid on Essex in 1814, which led to serious financial losses for Hayden, who died two years later. His widow and children remained in the Federal-style house until 1833, when Richard Hayden’s cousin, Samuel Hayden, bought the house. In 1894, Samuel’s daughter, Mary Tucker, left the house and furniture to St. John’s Episcopal Parish and it is now the church’s rectory.

Smith-Dickinson House (1842)

In 1841-1842, Charles Whitmore Smith, a merchant, built a Greek Revival house on North Street in Essex. In 1888, the house was purchased by Edward E. Dickinson, whose E.E. Dickinson Company dominated the nation’s production of witch hazel. Dickinson wintered in Florida, where the wealthy community of Palm Beach was being developed at the time. In 1927, Dickinson enlarged and remodeled his house in Essex to resemble Whitehall, Henry Flagler’s famous mansion in Palm Beach.

Ebenezer Hayden II House (1795)

Ebenezer Hayden II (the first Ebenezer Hayden was a brother who was born earlier but had died) probably built his Georgian and Federal style house, located on Main Street in Essex, in stages in the late 1790s. The doorway, featuring a semi-circular fanlight window, may have been added around 1800. The Hayden House was the first home in the lower Connecticut River Valley to have a hipped roof, which may have been constructed by the noted builder Thomas Hayden of Windsor and shipped down the river in sections to be placed on the building. The Ebenezer Hayden House is the third home up from the river and one of many homes built by members of the Hayden family in the vicinity of the Hayden Shipyard. Ebenezer II married Sarah, the daughter of Grover L’Hommideau, who had created the town’s first ropewalk.

Jared Pratt House (1803)

Jared Pratt built a house on Main Street in Essex around 1803, after his marriage to Polly Bull. In 1854, Captain Isaiah Pratt purchased the home from his father, although his parents were allowed life use. Isaiah, who later altered the house in the Second Empire style, sold it to his sister, Mary Pratt, in 1868. In 1922, the main section of the building was moved from Main Street to what is now called Pratt Street to make room for the construction of a new town office building (now the Post Office).

First Baptist Church in Essex (1845)

The Baptist Church in Essex was founded in 1811. The congregation’s first church was a brick building, built in 1817, which stood across Prospect Street from Hill’s Academy. In 1845, a new church was built, adjacent to the Academy on Baptist Hill. Constructed by master builder Jeremish Gladding, the Baptist Church was designed in the Egyptian Revival style, modeled on an 1844 Presbyterian church, the Old Whaler’s Church in Sag Harbor, Long Island, designed by Minard Lafever. Both of these buildings are interesting examples of a style not often used for churches in America. The church’s original steeple was destroyed after being struck by lightning in 1925. It was replaced by the current steeple, a Colonial Revival structure which features a gold dome and a variation on a ‘Widow’s Walk” below.

Robert Pratt Homestead (1716)

The Robert Pratt House, on Route 154 in Centerbrook consists of a main Georgian-style center-chimney house with a smaller wing on the west side. It is possible that the wing was built first, by Robert Pratt, Sr. around 1716. The main part of the house was built around the time Nathan Pratt sold the house to Rev. Stephen Holmes in 1758. Rev. Holmes was the second pastor of the Second Ecclessiastical Society of Saybrook, located in Potapoug, which is now the village of Centerbrook in the town of Essex. As explained in the History of Middlesex County (1884), the Reverend, who died in 1773, “practiced medicine in addition to preaching the gospel.”

Samuel Lay House (1754)

Built in 1754 by Samuel Lay, the son of Robert Lay, Jr., the house at 17 North Main Street in Essex was altered the nineteenth century to conform to the popularity of the Greek Revival style. In 1924, the house was purchased and again altered by E.E. Dickinson, Jr.