The Trowbridge-Thoms House (1830)

The Trowbridge-Thoms House, on West Street in Litchfield, was built in 1830 by Henry Trowbridge, a tanner. In the early twentieth century, the barn on the property was used as a classroom for students of landscape painter Alexander Van Lear. The house and barn remained in the Trowbridge family until 1927, when they were sold to a Mr. Thoms, who open a restaurant, called the Canteen, in the barn. The restaurant served patrons of a nearby community playhouse that was later replaced by the current town hall building. Floyd Thoms later turned the barn into an antiques shop, which was continued by the next owner, Thomas McBride, who acquired the property in 1965. Mr. McBride is now retiring and the house and antiques will be sold in an on-site auction on June 5.

Chase Cottage (Topsmead) (1923)

In 1917, Henry Sabin Chase, president of the Chase Brass and Copper Company in Waterbury, gave his daughter, Edith Morton Chase, sixteen acres on Jefferson Hill in Litchfield. Miss Chase had a rustic cottage built on the property, which she replaced with a larger Tudor Revival-style summer home, built in 1923-1925. Chase named the house “Topsmead,” meaning “top of the meadow,” and shared her home with her close friends, the unmarried sisters, Mary and Lucy Burall. They divided their time between the Chase Cottage at Topsmead and the Burall sister’s house on Church Street in Waterbury. When Miss Chase died in 1972, she bequeathed her property to the state. It is now Topsmead State Forest. (more…)

The Edwin McNeil House (1867)

The Edwin McNeil House, on North Street in Litchfield, is a good example of an older home which was transformed into a Colonial Revival edifice in keeping with the overall style of the neighborhood. The house was originally a vernacular home, built by Edwin McNeil in 1867. McNeil, a civil engineer who had served as a major in the Civil War, was instrumental in bringing the Shepaug Railroad to Litchfield in 1872. The railroad linked Litchfield to New York and spurred the town’s development as a summer resort. McNeil’s house became the Litchfield Inn in the early twentieth century and was transformed into a Colonial Revival estate after it was purchased by a wealthy Waterbury industrialist in 1911. It was renovated again in the 1990s.

The William G. Peck House (1867)

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This is the thousandth post at Historical Buildings of Connecticut! To celebrate, you may have noticed the new poll at the top of the sidebar. Please vote!!! Today’s building is the William G. Peck House, which is on North Street in Litchfield and was built in 1867. William Guy Peck was born in Litchfield in 1820, graduated from West Point (pdf, p. 81) in 1844 and served in the corps of Topographical Engineers. He later taught mathematics at West Point and later at Columbia College, where he also taught engineering and led the Department of Mechanics in the School of Mines. He married a daughter of the mathematician, Charles Davies. According to an 1892 obituary:

He was the author of numerous works, including a mathematical dictionary, and text-books in arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, differential and integral calculus, determinants, mechanics, physics, and astronomy. His works are characterized by lucidity, conciseness and directness. His teaching was distinguished by the same excellent qualities. His full and exact knowledge of the subjects which he taught, his clear exposition and illustration of them, his enthusiasm, his solicitude for the advancement and welfare of the students, the humor with which he occasionally illumined his lectures, made his room an attractive one, and his courses sought after and enjoyed. It is within the personal knowledge of very many, perhaps the most, of those by whom this notice will be read, that no professor in the college was more beloved than he.

Tallmadge Store/ J.C. Wadsworth House (1784)

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Benjamin Tallmadge, spymaster for George Washington during the Revolutionary War, moved to Litchfield after the war and became a successful merchant. His store, built around 1784, originally stood next to his home on Litchfield’s North Street. It was moved across the street around 1811 and incorporated into the house of J.C. Wadsworth, which still stands today on the east side of North Street.

Seymour Cunningham House (1904)

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Designed by Ehrick K. Rossiter, the 1904 Seymour Cunningham House, on South Street in Litchfield, is an example of the types of high style Colonial Revival houses that were built as summer homes for the wealthy in the early twentieth century. Seymour Cunningham was the son of William Orr Cunningham, a wealthy papermill owner from New York State. Seymour married in 1892 and it is possible that he built the house the following year, 1893. That is the date given in a biographical sketch of Cunningham in the Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut, Vol. II (1911):

Seymour, son of William Orr Cunningham, was born in Troy, New York, September 13, 1863. He attended the Troy Academy. Later he entered the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and graduated with the degree of civil engineer in 1884. He became interested in the oil business in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In 1887 the old home at Troy, New York, was sold and he brought his mother to Washington, D. C., and built a residence at No. 1719 K street, where he still maintains his winter residence. His Litchfield home, “Forked Chimney,” was built in 1893, on South street, near the site of the old Parmelee house. In politics he is a Republican. In religion he is an Episcopalian. He married, June 6, 1892, Stephanie Whitney, of Oakland, California, born October 22, 1869, daughter of Hon. George E. Whitney, lawyer and state senator of California, and Mary (Van Swaringen) Whitney, of Louisville, Kentucky. Mrs. Cunningham was named Stephanie in honor of her uncle, Justice Stephen J. Field, of the United States supreme court. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham: Cecil, born March 8, 1893; Macklin, February 21, 1894; Jane Chester, February 27, 1896; Pamela, May 5, 1906. The three oldest were born in Washington, D. C., the youngest in Litchfield, Connecticut.