539 Hopewell Road, Glastonbury (1840)

539 Hopewell Rd., Glastonbury

It is not known who built the house at 539 Hopewell Road in Glastonbury. While in some ways resembling a traditional center-chimney house, it has a less traditional arrangement of windows suggesting a later date. The front roof dormer is a twentieth-century addition. The property was owned in the 1840s and 1850s by Henry Dayton, a farmer who may have been attempting to capitalize on nearby industrial development. The house was later, in fact, owned by a general store that was linked to the textile mills. (more…)

Joseph Kilbourn House (1829)

Joseph Kilbourn House

The house at 1665 Main Street in Glastonbury was built, according to a beam over the attic stairway, by Joseph Kilbourn (1765-1851) in 1829. The brick front section of the house and the rear ell, which is of wood frame construction, have the same brick foundation. This is an unusual feature and may indicate that the house was actually built later than 1829 or that the brick section was moved to its current location.

Theodore Hale House (1745)

1715 Main Street, Glastonbury

In 1759 Jonathan Hale, Jr. (1696-1772) of Glastonbury deeded one half of a brick house to his son, Theodore Hale (1735-1807), who acquired the other half in 1762. Built around 1745, the gambrel-roofed Hale House (1715 Main Street in Glastonbury) remained in the Hale family until 1810. It was owned for a time by Rev. Prince Hawes, pastor of the First Church of Christ. William H. Turner (1788-1872) bought the house in 1828 and it remained in his family until 1912. Turner, who served in the War of 1812, owned a coasting vessel, which operated from the Connecticut river to various Atlantic ports. He was also involved in shipbuilding and politics, serving in the state legislature and as town selectman.

Glastenbury Knitting Company Houses (1920)

22-24 Addison Rd., Glastonbury

26-28 Addison Rd., Glastonbury

The two identical houses at 22-24 and 26-28 Addison Road in Glastonbury were built c. 1920 as mill worker tenements by the Glastenbury Knitting Company. The company, which manufactured underwear, used an older spelling of the town’s name. These tenement houses were built in the then-popular Dutch Colonial style, featuring gambrel roofs. The mill eventually sold off the houses in the 1930s.

David Brainerd House (1879)

1542 Main St., Glastonbury

The property at 1542 Main Street in Glastonbury was once the site of the 1718 Welles Homestead. As related by Henry T. Welles in his Autobiography and Reminiscences, Volume 1 (1899):

The house and out-buildings with about forty acres of land were sold by my respected friend and agent, Hon. Thaddeus Welles, to Henry Talcott, who being unable to make payment, relinquished his claim to the property. It was then sold to Gustavus Kellogg, and by him to David Brainerd, who having previously removed the other buildings and replaced them with a new barn and tobacco and other sheds, in 1878-9 tore down the house, graded the site, and erected a good modern house thereon.

That Gothic Revival house, which was later owned by Frank Potter, still exists today.

Gideon Hale House (1762)

Gideon Hale House

The house at 1401 Main Street in Glastonbury was built for Gideon Hale, probably in 1762, the year he married Mary White of Middletown. According to tradition, the wedding party crossed the Connecticut River after the wedding to the newly-built house and ended up staying for a week because of a severe snowstorm. Gideon Hale (1736-1812) was a member of the Connecticut General Assembly (1782-1785) and Constable of Glastonbury (1873). From December 1814 until the spring of 1817, the Columbia Lodge of Masons met at the house. As described in The Hollister Family of America; Lieut. John Hollister, of Wethersfield, Conn., and His Descendants (1886), edited by Lafayette Wallace Case:

The death of Mrs. Hezekiah Hale, at the age of 94, leaves the old Hale mansion in Glastonbury without a mistress at its head for the first time since its erection, one hundred and twenty-three years ago.

It was in this house, then just built, that Gideon Hale and Mary White, who were married December 23 [1762], commenced housekeeping, and here their youngest son, Hezekiah, brought his newly married wife, Pamela, daughter of Dr. Asaph Coleman, November 17, 1813. The elder Mrs. Hale died, a widow, April 1, 1820, and Mrs. Pamela Hale died Oct. 8, 1885, having survived her husband fifty three years. For one hundred and twenty-three years, lacking a little over two months, the house has seen but these two mistresses. Gideon Hale and Mary White reared a family of five sons and six daughters, under the old roof-tree, all of whom, except two daughters, were married and left the old place; and Hezekiah Hale and Pamela Coleman reared a family of three sons and three daughters, who, with one exception, went into the world and had families of their own; and the descendants of both, now widely scattered, will greatly miss the cheery greeting and hospitable welcome of the last mistress, who always made a visit to the old home so pleasant, and whose fund of anecdote and information regarding those who had gone, always so willingly given, was full of information and interest. The funeral of Mrs. Hale took place on Sunday afternoon, and was largely attended by sorrowing relatives and neighbors. The Rev. Mr. Betts, of the Episcopal church, officiated. The solemn dignity of that beautiful service in the rural cemetery, under the bright sun and genial October air, made the scene very impressive.

Mrs. Pamela Hale, the estimable lady here alluded to, was an aunt of the late Hon. Gideon Welles, of this city. Mr. Welles held in high esteem the venerable lady, and he was fond of the old homesteads in Glastonbury, where his father lived and where he was born. He used to relate many pleasant reminiscences of those fine homesteads, and the prominent families who occupied them.

The house’s front Connecticut River Valley doorway is a reproduction based on nineteenth-century sketches of the original. (more…)