George Baldwin House (1832)

At 530 Foxon Road in North Branford is a one-story hip-roofed house with a grand Greek Revival entryway. The house’s distinctive design has been attributed to the famed architect Ithiel Town. In 1827, Deacon Israel Baldwin deeded forty-two acres of land to his son, Micah Baldwin, a New York merchant, who may have known the architect. In 1834, Micah gave the house, erected c. 1832, and the land to his nephew, George Baldwin, a farmer of modest means. The house has many secret hiding places and the basement may once have had a connecting tunnel, leading to the conclusion it may have been built specifically to serve as a station on the Underground Railroad. Micah and his brother Josiah Baldwin were abolitionists and Town may have been sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause. The house was owned by the Doody family from 1919 to 1948.

Alson Barber House (1839)

The house at 150 Barbertown Road in Canton was built in 1839 by Alson Barber (1792-1880) to replace an earlier house built for him at the time of his marriage in 1814 to Hannah Humphrey by his father, Reuben Barber. As described by lawyer Sylvester Barbour in his Reminiscences (1908):

The family of Alson Barber is the most remarkable I have known, and seems to me worthy of special mention. He was born May 6, 1792, and died April 5, 1880. He was brother to Sadosa (their father, Reuben, being the first person buried in the Center cemetery), and first cousin to my father, Henry Barbour. His wife, Hannah Humphrey (born December 4, 1796, died April 19, 1877), was a sister to the Rev. Heman Humphrey, D.D., [. . .] and sister to my mother, thus producing double relationship between the children of the two families. John Brown, the martyr, was first cousin to these sisters and brother. Alson and Hannah were married November 16, 1814, and the following named twelve children were born to them: Luther Humphrey, Maria, Nelson, Harriet, Sarah, Gaylord, John, Jennette, Lemuel, Mary, Hannah and Martha. All of these children lived to adult years, all were married, and excepting the first named, had children of their own. [. . .] All because members of the church in their youth and lived exemplarily. The parents lived together most happily more than 62 years, and celebrated their golden wedding and the sixtieth anniversary of their marriage. At the former celebration eleven of their twelve children were present, and at the latter nine were present. Thirty-five grandchildren were living at the time of the former celebration, and all the children were living at the sixty-second anniversary of the parents’ marriage.


Alson’s son, Gaylord, later ran the farm and erected barns on the property.

Windham & Smithville Company Store (1850)

In 1822, Deacon Charles Lee acquired the rights to erect a cotton mill on the east side of what is now Bridge Street in Willimantic. The mill was acquired in 1845 by two men from Rhode Island, Amos and James Smith, who renamed it the Smithville Manufacturing Company. In 1828, three men from Rhode Island, Mathew Watson, and Nathan and Arunah Tingley, erected another cotton mill, called the Windham Manufacturing Company, on the west side of Bridge Street. The Smithville and Windham mills, on either side of Bridge Street, would merge in 1907. The company would later be named the Quidnik-Windham Manufacturing Company. The stone mill buildings do not survive today, but some of the worker housing and a former company store, remain standing. An assessor’s record dates the store to c. 1850, although it may have been constructed in the 1820s by Deacon Lee himself. It may also have been the Windham Manufacturing Company store that was owned by George M. Harrington from 1874 to 1883. Located at 24 Bridge Street, the store is built of ashlar granite, with alternating courses of wide and narrow stone. The south gable-end of the building has large loading bay windows facing the adjacent railroad tracks.

Danbury Railway Museum (1903)

By the 1880s, three railroads served the city of Danbury: the Danbury and Norwalk, the Housatonic, and the New York and New England. By 1892, these had all merged with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Soon after, the public began to demand that the three separate stations be consolidated into one new station. Built in 1903, the resulting Union Station, designed by A. Malkin, has a Richardsonian Romanesque structure with Colonial Revival details. Alfred Hitchcock filmed station scenes for the 1951 film Strangers on a Train on the platform. The station eventually became the northern terminus of the Danbury Branch of Metro-North’s New Haven Line. Metro-North closed the station in 1993, but it was soon restored to become the Danbury Railway Museum. In 1998, the museum restored the original 1912 railroad turntable, essentially a swing bridge, located several hundred yards east of the passenger station.

Jacob J. & Charlotte Ritz House (1875)

Construction of the house at 25 Vine Street in New Britain, which displays Victorian Gothic and Eastlake elements, has been dated to 1867, c. 1875, or, in A Walk Around Walnut Hill (1975), between 1885 and 1890. That same book indicates the house was built by Jacob J. and Charlotte Ritz (Jacob Ritz was a city councilman in 1882) and was purchased by George Tyler, an engineer, about 1900. The property includes an original carriage house.

St. James Episcopal Church, Farmington (1898)

Episcopal services in the village of Farmington were first held in an old schoolhouse in 1873, when St. James’ Mission was established under the leadership of Rev. Edward R. Brown, Rector of Christ Church in Unionville, and Charles L. Whitman, a Farmington innkeeper. By late 1874, the mission had moved to the second floor of a grocery store and post office on Main Street near Mill Lane. Whitman died in 1886 and left money for the erection of a church. The mission raised additional funds and acquired land for the church on Mountain Road in 1897. The Arts & Crafts-style structure was designed and built by Henry Hall Mason, whose father, Charles S. Mason, was a strong supporter of the mission. Mason used local field stone in the construction and also made the church’s wooden altar and reading desk using wood from his own property. The first service in the new building was held in January 1899 and the church was consecrated five months later. The mission was formally recognized as St. James Parish in 1902. An addition to the rear was built in 1910 to provide a larger chancel and organ loft. Two further additions were a new parish house in 1938 and a parish hall, designed by Edgar T. Glass, in 1957. That same year, a belfry was also constructed.