Randolph Please built two homes in Middletown, on opposite sides of College Street, where it meets Broad Street. The first is a Federal townhouse, built around 1822, which once had four chimneys and a kitchen ell. The house is part of the Broad Street Historic District.
Psi Upsilon, the fifth oldest college fraternity in the United States, was founded at Union College in 1833. The Xi chapter was established at Wesleyan University in 1843 and the fraternity’s building was constructed in 1893. The Dutch Renaissance Revival building was designed by Colin C. Wilson and constructed of yellow Perth Amboy brick.
The house traditionally known as the Jacob Pledger House, at the northeast corner of Westfield and East Streets in Middletown, was actually built by a prosperous farmer, named James Plumb, in 1804. The attached kitchen wing may have been Plumb’s original dwelling (built in 1740), before he built his early Federal-style mansion house. The house remained in the Plumb and Barry families until 1888 and is still a private residence.
Captain Benjamin Williams built an impressive brick house in Middletown in 1791. As described in New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vol III (1913), compiled by William Richard Cutter,
Benjamin Williams came to America from the Island of Bermuda when a young man, and settled in Middletown, Connecticut, where he died June 15. 1812, at the age of forty-five years. He built and lived in the house on East Washington street subsequently known as the De Koven place, and at present as the Wadsworth House, He became a large ship owner and had many vessels plying between the East and West Indies and the port of Middletown, the towns on the Connecticut river having extensive shipping interests in those days. Then came the war of 1812, and French privateers captured the greater number of his ships. He expected that the government would reimburse him for this loss, and died in the hope that his widow would receive what was her due, but this was never done.
The house was later owned by Henry L. deKoven, who was also involved in merchant shipping and was the first president of the Middlesex County Bank in 1830. In 1900. the house passed to Clarence Seymour Wadsworth, who used it as a business office after he built the Mansion on his Long Hill Estate. In 1941, he bequeathed the house to the Rockfall Corporation, which he had founded in 1935 and has been dedicated to environmental education, conservation projects and planning initiatives in Middlesex County. Restored in 1942, the house opened as a Community Center for non-profit organizations in Middlesex County.
Across from the Harriet Cooper Lane House in Middletown is the Nehemiah Hubbard House, a center-chimney Colonial saltbox, built in 1744. Nehemiah Hubbard, Jr., who was born in 1752 and was a later owner of the house, was a fourth-generation descendant of early settlers of Middletown. A prominent merchant, he served as Deputy Quartermaster for Middletown during the Revolutionary War and was the first president of the Middletown Bank. He was also the original land-owner in what would become Hubbard, Ohio. Hubbard used his Middletown house and extensive property, which was away from the center of town, for his farming operations and it remained in his family into the twentieth century. For a time, Thomas McDonough Russell, Sr. lived in the house and in 1916, it was acquired by Colonel Clarence Wadsworth. Restored in 1929, the house remained in the Wadsworth family until 1952. Still a private home, the property has a garden established in 1956.
Now located at the entrance to Laurel Grove Road in Middletown, the Harriet Cooper Lane House (named for a long-time occupant) originally stood on Main Street in Durham. The house was built by Robert Smithson in 1741 and was moved to Middletown in 1957.
Wesleyan University‘s Patricelli ’92 Theater was originally called Rich Hall and was built in 1868 as the college library. It was designed by Henry Austin and David Russell Brown. In 1928, Olin Library opened and Rich Hall was converted to become a theater, funded by a donation from the class of 1892. The theater was renovated in 2003 with a gift from Robert Patricelli (’61) in honor of Leonard J. Patricelli (’29). Wesleyan’s student-run theater, Second Stage, is based in the theater.
