In 1852, Guilford builder William Weld constructed an Italianate house (possibly based on a design by Henry Austin) on Boston Street for his brother, the whaling captain Frederick Alonzo Weld, who was captain of the Italy out of Greenport, Long Island. Capt. Weld died in 1893 and a memorial epitaph, written by Henry Pynchon Robinson, was published in Guilford Portraits (1907).
Possibly built earlier, the house of John Baldwin Chittenden, on Boston Street in Guilford, was updated with Federal-style additions, including a tripartite window (similar to that on the Deming-Standish House in Wethersfield) in 1814. In 1831-1832, Chittenden and his family, along with others from Guilford, moved to Illinois and settled near what is now Mendon in Adams County. Chittenden was a deacon in the Congregational Church and in 1833, in his new home in Illinois, the first Congregational Church in the state was organized. In 1834, Chittenden laid out the village of Guilford, now Mendon.
Guilford was originally part of the New Haven colony and in 1661, the town granted the land now known as Leete’s Island to William Leete. He became governor of the colony and later became governor of Connecticut. The family built a number of houses on the property, but the oldest one to survive today was built by William Leete’s grandson, Pelatiah Leete (1681-1768) in 1709-1710. In 1781, during the Revolutionary War, the British raided Leete’s Island, burning a house and two barns, but were turned back by local citizens. Pelatiah Leete III‘s brother, Simeon Leete, who shared the house with him, was wounded in the skirmish and died in the house the following day. Built as a saltbox, with an integral lean-to, the house remained in the Leete family until 1929. Harry Glenn purchased the house in 1930 and his wife, Mrs. Dorothy Glenn, first president of the Guilford Keeping Society, operated an antiques shop and tearoom in the house in the 1930s. Later owners built the addition in 1980 and the house was recently restored.
The Benjamin Bradley House, on Boston Street in Guilford, is an Italian-style villa built in 1860. Benjamin Bradley was the son of Benjamin Bradley and Juliana Leete. The house’s builder was William E. Weld, who also constructed the very similar house of Julie Labadie on Whitfield Street. It has been suggested the that house may have been designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin (see A Treasury of Guilford Places (2008), by Joel Eliot Helander, p. 270).
The Leete-Griswold House, on Fair Street (formerly Petticoat Lane) in Guilford, was built by Edwin A. Leete in 1856. The house is in the Octagon style, although it no longer has its original overhanging eaves with decorative brackets. Leete had grown up in the Pelatiah Leete III House on Leetes Island in Guilford. He only lived in his octagon house a short time before moving to a larger house nearby. (more…)
Built around 1774 in Guilford by the blacksmith, Thomas Griswold III, for his sons, John and Ezra. It eventually became the property of their cousin George, and was passed down through his descendants until 1958, when it was purchased by the Guilford Keeping Society. This historical society preserves the house as a museum and has undertaken two major restorations, in 1974 and 1995. (more…)
Possibly built sometime between 1690-1710, although it might also date back to 1660, the Hyland House in Guilford is a saltbox house that was most likely constructed for the sheep farmer, George Hyland, who died in 1693. It was later owned by his grandson, Ebenezer Parmelee, who was a shipwright and a metal/woodworker. Parmelee built New England’s first steeple clock for Guilford’s Congregational Church in 1727.
The house was in danger of demolition in 1916, but was saved by the Dorothy Whitfield Historic Society , who opened it as a museum of colonial life in 1918.
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