Harriet Welles Turner Burnham House (1879)

2247 Main St., Glastonbury

Harriet Welles (1856-1931) married Sturgis P. Turner in 1879. They occupied a house on Main Street (either built by them around 1879 or built earlier in 1830). After her husband’s death in 1916, Harriet Welles Turner later married John W. Burnham. Harriet Burnham, who died in 1931, willed her estate in trust for the benefit of her husband. When he died in 1941, her will provided $350,000 to the Town of Glastonbury for a public library to be constructed on the site of her former home on Main Street. The house was moved in 1951 by the R.F. Jones Company to its current address at 2247 Main Street. The new Welles-Turner Memorial Library was dedicated on October 5, 1952.

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.