Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Norwich

The Jedediah and Ebenezer Huntington House (1765)

Jedediah and Ebenezer Huntington were brothers who served in the Revolutionary War. Sons of General Jabez Huntington, they successively occupied a house, built in 1765, on East Town Street in Norwich. Jedediah Huntington fought at Bunker Hill and eventually became a general. He married Faith Trumbull, the daughter of Governor Jonathan Trumbull. After the war, He became the Collector of Customs at New London and moved there. His brother, Ebenezer Huntington, then lived in the Norwich House from 1789. Ebenezer had also served in the war and later served as a Federalist Congressman in the House of Representatives. The semicircular window over the door and keystones over the first floor windows were later Federal style additions to the house.

The Thomas Coit House (1782)

The house of merchant Thomas Coit, on Broadway in Norwich, was built in 1782 in a grand Georgian style, although some of the building’s elaborate decoration was added later under the influence of the Colonial Revival movement. Coit was a partner in a privateering firm during the Revolutionary War and in 1784 was Collector of Revenue in Norwich, serving under Christopher Leffingwell, from whom he had purchased the land to build his house. In 1798, he moved to Canterbury and the house was sold to Deacon Jabez Huntington. Records show that both of these first two residents of the house were slave owners.

The Bradford-Huntington House (1705)

A portion of what would later be known as the Bradford-Huntington House was built in Norwich on the home lot of John Bradford sometime prior to 1691 (perhaps as early as 1660, although a D.A.R. marker on the property gives the date as 1705). The house was bought by Capt. Joshua Huntington, a merchant, in 1719 (or by his father, Simon Huntington, in 1691). In later years he would enlarge and update the house in the Georgian style, adding a gambrel roof and a new chimney. The house was later owned (1745), and expanded with the addition of a rear ell, by his son, Jabez Huntington, who became Major General of the Connecticut militia in 1776, the same year George Washington spent a night in the home during the Revolutionary War. Later, Huntington experienced mental strain from his efforts and resigned in 1779. He died in 1786 and is buried near his house in the Old Norwichtown Cemetery.

Joseph Carpenter’s Shop (1772)

Joseph Carpenter was a silversmith in Norwich whose shop, built in 1772, still stands on East Town Street, on Norwichtown Green. The shop, where Carpenter also made clocks, may be the only frame silversmith shop surviving in New England. The building is now owned by the Society of the Founders of Norwich and is currently used as a law office.

Today I have also added five new buildings to this blog’s sister site, Historic Buildings of Massachusetts! Please check them out!!!

United Congregational Church, Norwich (1857)

In 1842, a group gathered primarily from Norwich’s Second Congregational Church formed a new congregation which met in the town hall until their own church building was constructed on Main Street in 1845. Known as the Main Street Congregational Church, they eventually built a new building on Broadway after the Main Street structure was destroyed by fire in 1854. The Broadway Congregational Church, a much larger building than the first, was built in the Romanesque Revival style between 1855 and 1857. Broadway Congregational later merged with the Second Church congregation and has since been known as the United Congregational Church. The building originally had a spire that was 200 feet high, but it was struck by lightning and removed in 1898.

Lafayette S. Foster House (1850)

Lafayette Sabin Foster was a U.S. senator and judge on the Connecticut Supreme Court. His Italianate-style house, built in the 1850s on Broadway in Norwich, was acquired in 1953 by the Norwich Free Academy. It housed the Norton-Peck Library until the library collection was later moved to another building. The Lafayette Foster House is now part of the NFA’s Latham Science and Information Center, which was connected to it.

First Congregational Church of Norwich (1801)

Norwich’s First Congregational Church, located on East Town Street, next to Norwichtown Green, is the fifth in a succession of early meeting houses. The first was built on the southeast corner of the Green in 1660, in Norwichtown, the earliest part of Norwich to be settled. During the troubled period of King Philip’s War, it was replaced by a second structure, constructed in 1673 on the nearby cliff area, known as the Meeting House Rocks. There it could also serve as a lookout post in case of Indian raids. After being replaced by a third building later on, the fourth building was built in 1752 back on the plain below. After that church burned, it was replaced, on the same site, by the current Federal-style structure in 1801. When construction began that year, the cornerstone was laid by Ebenezer Huntington. There was extensive remodeling in 1845. (more…)