Pinehurst (1860)

Pinehurst is an Italianate villa at 154 Washington Street in Norwich. Described as “one of the most picturesque places in Norwich,” it was built around 1860 for Joshua Newton Perkins. According to A Modern History of New London County, Vol. II (1922):

A New York architect, Mr. Gervase Wheeler, and his associate, William T. Hallett, erected the brick house where it now stands. The house was large and commodious, and its position afforded a fine view of the valley and cove. It resembled the Italian villas on the shores of the lakes. A photograph taken in 1866 shows the simplicity and beauty of the plan; the “Newton Perkins Place” was one of the show places of the city.

Mr. Perkins was one of the prominent men of Norwich, active in the advancement of its educational and industrial interests. After a period of some twenty years, business affairs took him to New York, and the house passed into the possession of Robert Bayard of New York. The Bayards did not occupy the house, which was in charge of a caretaker till it was purchased by Mrs. Edward Gibbs, who made many alterations and additions, among them the wide verandas; the “Newton Perkins Place” was merged into “Pinehurst,” its present name.

[…] By an odd coincidence, New York again proved a magnet, and the Gibbs family went to that city to reside. The house again was uninhabited, till 1904, when Frank Allyn Roath, a descendant of Robert Allyn, one of the original proprietors of Norwich, became the owner; Mr. Roath enjoyed his beautiful home but a few short years. He left it to his wife, Gertrude Hakes Roath, who is much interested in horticulture, and a true lover of nature. Under her supervision the grounds show the effects of the renewed care, and many wild flowers are finding homes in congenial soil.

On the verandas of Pinehurst, author Paul Leicester Ford worked on his novel, The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him (1894). Pinehurst was designed to resemble the homes of rural Italy, which have rambling wings added to over generations. Today, the house is the Pinehurst Apartments.

Chelsea Savings Bank (1911)

The Chelsea Savings Bank in Norwich was incorporated in 1858. According to A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, Volume 2 (1922):

The home of the bank was in the Merchants Hotel building until April, 1864, when quarters were secured on Shetuckct street, which were occupied until 1909, when the bank building was so badly damaged by fire that the erection of a new modern building, large and imposing, was decided upon. The present building, most splendidly located and planned, was finished and occupied in November, 1911.

The building has a monumental character due to its location at the angle formed by the intersection of Cliff and Main Streets. A Universalist Church at the site was demolished to make way for the new building. The Chelsea Savings Bank was designed by the firm of Cudworth & Woodworth, who also designed the Norwich State Hospital.

Samuel C. Morgan House (1843)

Samuel C. Morgan (1789-1876) was born in Lisbon, graduated from Yale in 1812, trained as a lawyer and in 1815 began his practice in Jewett City. In 1842, he was elected president of the Quinebaug Bank and moved to Norwich. The Quinebaug Bank had been founded in 1832 and became the First National Bank in 1865. His house in Norwich, at 3 Crossway Street, was built around 1843. The house has interesting corner pilasters with H-shaped moldings.

Lathrop Manor (1745)

The seventeenth century home of Dr. John Olmstead, Norwich’s first physician, was located at the current site of Lathrop Manor, on Washington Street in Norwichtown. He later sold his house, built around 1660, to Samuel Lathrop (1650-1732). It was then inherited by Samuel’s son, Thomas Lathrop (1681-1774). It is possible the original house burned in 1745 and was rebuilt. In any case, after Samuel’s death, it was owned by Dr. Daniel Lathrop, who joined with Dr. Joshua Lathrop (whose home is across the street) to establish Connecticut’s first apothecary, at that time the only one located between New York and Boston. Benedict Arnold lived in the house as a young man while he was apprenticed to the Lathrops, who were merchants in addition to running an apothecary. Dr. Daniel Lathrop married Jerusha, the daughter of Governor Joseph Talcott. The property was famed for its gardens and Lydia Huntly Sigourney, who later became a popular poet and author, lived in the house as a child while her father was working as a gardener for the Lathrops. Sigourney recorded her memories of the house and garden in her books, Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since (1824) and Letters of Life (1866). After Mrs. Jerusha Lathrop died in 1806, the house was owned by another Daniel Lathrop, the son of Dr. Joshua Lathrop. An important resident in the later nineteenth century was Daniel Coit Gilman, an influential educator who taught at Yale and became the first president of Johns Hopkins University. A Lathrop descendant, Gilman delivered A Historical Discourse at Norwich’s Bicentennial Celebration in 1859. Today the house is a bed & breakfast called Lathop Manor.

Trumbull-Carew House (1763)

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The Trumbull-Carew House (pdf), at 44 East Town Street in Norwich, was built in 1763 by Joseph Carew. Capt. Carew sold the house to Col. Joseph Trumbull in 1778 and later enlarged the Simon Huntington House nearby as his new residence. Col. Trumbull was the son of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull and was appointed as the first commissary general of the Continental Army in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. Illness forced him to resign his duties the following year and he died at his father’s home in Lebanon, having only recently purchased the house in Norwich. The house has had many owners over the years and has recently been for sale.