The center-chimney house at 455 East Street in the Westfield section of Middletown was built in 1786 by Giles Wilcox (1750-1838), a prominent citizen and militia captain, on land he had acquired from the estate of his father-in-law David Doud. The house, known as “Ashcroft,” remained in the Wilcox family until 1943, when it was acquired by the Brainard family. The house had to be repaired after an ash tree crashed through the roof during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.
The Colonial center-chimney house at 353 Newfield Street in Middletown was built sometime between 1705/6, when Lt. Nathaniel Bacon (1674-1759) inherited the land from his father Nathaniel (an early settler of Middletown in 1653 who was born in England in 1630 and came to America in 1649), and 1759, when the property was mentioned in the younger Nathaniel‘s will.
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The house at 28 Pearl Street in Middletown was built by Charles Brewer (1778-1860) sometime between 1839 and 1851. It was one of three houses he built on Pearl Street during the second quarter of the nineteenth century and may have been intended to be a rental property. The house was owned in the later nineteenth century by Rev. Eleazor Foster, who was pastor of Middletown’s First Universalist Church from 1866 to 1868, and then by the printer J. Peters Pelton, who built a house on Court Street in the 1880s.
Charles Brewer is described in the Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1903):
Capt. Charles Brewer second son of George was born in Springfield Mass. March 24, 1778, and removed to Middletown on attaining his majority. He was a silversmith, and for fifty nine years was a manufacturing and merchant jeweler, being a successful and a leading merchant of his time. He was a captain in the old militia for many years, and was known as “Capt.” Charles Brewer. With his son-in-law, Edwin Stearns, he gave the real estate for and was instrumental in the building the Universalist Church at Middletown. Fraternally he was a member of St. John’s Lodge, F. & A. M., and some of his silver work was used for many years in that lodge. Capt. Brewer built the family home on the corner of Pearl and Court streets as well as the two houses south of it on the east side of Pearl street. He was married February 18, 1801, to Hannah daughter of Barakiah Fairbanks. She was born September 28, 1777, and died May 24, 1855. Capt. Brewer died May 10, 1860. They were the parents of a numerous family of children[.]
Jacob Pledger (1762-1822) emigrated from England in 1795 with the family of his wife, Sarah Watkinson, and settled in Middletown, where he worked as an agent for the Middletown Brewery. In 1800 he acquired land from his father-in-law Samuel Watkinson, Sr. (1745-1816) and in 1803 erected at 717 Newfield Street what is now one of five surviving brick Federal-style houses in Middletown. Pledger farmed the surrounding land, which was evenly divided along both sides of Newfield Street. [His daughter Eliza would be a student at Sara Pierce‘s Litchfield Female Academy in 1814] Samuel Miller (1782-1856) purchased the house and farm in 1813. It was later owned by his son, Augustus Henry Miller (1816-1895), and then by Augusts’ daughter, Bernice M. Dunklee (1872-1965), whose husband, Henry F. Dunklee (1905-1961), managed the farm. Their son, Earle M. Dunklee (1898-1976) acquired the property in 1953 and sold it to the city in 1969. The house was purchased by Dr. Peter Nelson in 1975 in a sale that included architectural covenants to protect the integrity of the building‘s historic structure. Dr. Nelson adapted the building into professional offices (it is home to Dr. Nelson’s Advanced Cosmetic Dentistry).
The building at 135 Pearl Street at the corner of Lincoln Street in Middletown was built in 1892 as St. Luke’s Home for Destitute and Aged Women. The home had been established in 1865 and members of the Church of the Holy Trinity were instrumental in establishing the endowment. St. Luke’s Home was originally located in a house at the southwest corner of Court and Pearl Streets. A large legacy enabled the construction of the new building, which had quarters for fourteen women. A new wing addition was constructed and other alterations made in about 1925. In the 1970s the Home moved to new quarters behind the Rectory of the Church of the Holy Trinity and in 1981 the building on Pearl Street was converted into nine apartments.
The house at 15 Pearl Street in Middletown was built in either 1838 or 1839, at a time when the street was experiencing development as a neighborhood for the urban middleclass of tradespeople and small business owners. It was erected by George E. Barrows, who had a joiner’s shop on the property and may have contributed his skills to the construction. From 1851 to 1883, it was the home of Charles H. Pelton, a printer who had worked with Horace Greeley in New York. The house remained in the Pelton family until 1915.
Samuel Babcock (1788-1851) was a prominent Middletown manufacturer and politician. Originally from Old Saybrook, he was a silversmith there and around 1812 came to Middletown, where he had a shop near the Episcopal Church. In the 1850 census, he was listed as a spectacle maker (eyeglass manufacturer). He was active in various businesses, including banking, granite-quarrying and railroads. About 1851 he erected an Italianate house on Main Street, in front of Mortimer Cemetery. In 1927, the house was moved to 64 Liberty Street, across from the cemetery to make way for commercial development. At its new location, Salvatore Muscatello, the new owner, converted the second floor into a rental apartment and detached the original rear wing to become a separate house at 5 Frazier Avenue.
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