Glastonbury

The Hale-Rankin House (1789)

Earlier believed to have been built by Andrew Hale around 1754, with alterations made later in the Federal-style, the Hale-Rankin House is now thought to have been built in the Federal style in 1789. Located on Main Street in Glastonbury, it was built by Benjamin Hale and was later owned by the Reverend Samuel Rankin in the nineteenth century. Rankin was an abolitionist who told stories of people fleeing slavery by crossing the ice on the Ohio River. These stories influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s story of Eliza crossing the ice in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The house’s doorway is featured in Plate XXIV of Frederick Kelly’s Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut. Post Edited 5/27/08.

The Ebenezer Plummer House (1765)

What is now known as the Ebenezer Plummer House was originally built in 1750 by Dr. Elizur Hale, who ended up not being able to afford the house he had built on Main Street in Glastonbury. He sold it to Ebenezer Plummer, a successful merchant. Plummer moved to Glastonbury from Boston in the 1750s and his house displays some architectural features perhaps more common to eastern Massachusetts than to the Connecticut River Valley. Plummer was a town leader during the Revolutionary War. The house was moved to its current location in on Main Street in 1947, when Douglas Road was constructed connecting to Main Street at the home’s original site. Post Edited 5/27/08.

John Hollister House (1649)

The oldest House in Glastonbury was built in 1649, by Lt. John Hollister, and originally stood on the bank of the Connecticut River. Due to frequent flooding, it was moved to its current location, on Tryon Street, near Roaring Brook, in 1721. The rear lean-to, added around 1830, gave the house a saltbox shape. Hollister probably did not live in this house himself, as he maintained his main residence in Wethersfield, across the river. Instead, he rented it to three tenants, the brothers Josiah, Jonathan and John Gilbert, who farmed his land on the east side of the river. Hollister’s descendants would later make the house their ancestral home for many generations.

South Glastonbury Public Library (1828)

The building on High Street in Glastonbury, which is currently the home of the South Glastonbury Public Library, was originally built in 1828 as a Methodist Church. Constructed by Parley Bidwell, who also built Glastonbury’s first Town Hall, the church had separate entrances for men and women. In the 1860s, the building was used as an unofficial African-American church and anti-slavery rallies were held there. By 1910, the local cotton mills had closed and the Methodist congregation had greatly decreased. The building was sold and used only for summer services until 1927, when the South Glastonbury Library first opened. At that time, the building was owned by Mrs. Helen Walsh Thompson, who allowed it to be used as a library for a nominal fee until 1941, when she gave it to the South Glastonbury Library Association.

Hollister-Kinne House (1849)

Built in 1849 (the date 1841 is on the chimney in the attic), on Tryon Street in South Glastonbury, by the Hollister family (the 1649 John Hollister House stands nearby). Martin Hollister owned a gristmill and later a woolen mill up Roaring Brook. He was also a judge involved in the case of the Smith sisters. The house was later sold to the Kinne family, who still own the house. Since the 1970s, Nayaug Stables, an equestrian center, has been located on the property.

The Bedford, Massachusetts House (1682)

Originally built in the town of Bedford, Massachusetts in 1682 and moved to Main Street in Glastonbury in 1974. The Bedford Mass. House’s large central chimney and leaded casement windows are reconstructions of common features of post-medieval English houses (other examples include the Hyland, Stanley-Whitman, and Buttolph-Williams Houses).

Lorin and Florence Hollister Curtis House (1840)

The front porch was added later to this c. 1840 Greek Revival house, located on High Street in South Glastonbury. The house was once occupied by Lorin Curtis, a Civil War veteran, and his wife, Florence Hollister Curtis, who wrote a history of Glastonbury in 1928. Now a two-family home, the house also features a rear addition, built as a studio by the artist Dick Wilton, who lived in the house in the 1980’s.