Towns

The Welles-Chapman Tavern (1776)

The Welles-Chapman Tavern, on Main Street in Glastonbury, was moved from the west to the east side of the street in 1974, when the Glastonbury bank expanded. In the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the tavern was the stop-over for coaches traveling between Hartford and New London. The tavern (which was also the town’s first post office) was built in 1776 by Joseph Welles. It was purchased by Azel Chapman in 1808. Today, it is owned by the Historical Society of Glastonbury, who have rented it out to a number of tenants, currently the Glastonbury Chamber of Commerce.

Old Yale University Art Gallery (1927)

Historic Buildings of Connecticut’s fiftieth entry for New Haven is the old Yale University Art Gallery building, designed by Egerton Swartwout a Yale graduate, in a Gothic style called “Tuscan Romanesque.” Built along Chapel Street in 1927, the Art Gallery is connected to the earlier Street Hall (1864), across High Street, by a distinctive bridge. Swatwout planned a further extension of the building, but this original plan was not completed; instead the museum was expanded in 1953 with the construction of the modern-style new Art Gallery building, designed by Louis I. Kahn. Until recently, the bridge over High Street contained faculty offices, but it will soon be renovated, in the continuation of a Gallery plan which has already resulted in the restoration of the Kahn building. This work will expand the Art Gallery across the bridge and into Street Hall. (more…)

Samuel Lay House (1754)

Built in 1754 by Samuel Lay, the son of Robert Lay, Jr., the house at 17 North Main Street in Essex was altered the nineteenth century to conform to the popularity of the Greek Revival style. In 1924, the house was purchased and again altered by E.E. Dickinson, Jr.

Mortimer Mather House (1870)

A few doors down from the home of Dr. Ezra Mather, on Main Street in Essex, is a house he had built for his son, Mortimer Mather. The 1870 house (or more likely earlier) is a late example of the Greek Revival style.

Congregational Church of Plainville (1850)

The first ecclesiastical society of Plainville began in 1840, when the congregation split off from the church in Farmington to become the Second Congregational Church of Farmington. Plainville was incorporated as a seperate town in 1869. The current Gothic Revival style Congregational Church of Plainville was built in 1850 and was designed by the New Haven architect Henry Austin.

The Loren Humiston House (1854)

The Loren Humiston House, on Main Street in Cheshire, is a Greek Revival style home, with an elaborate doorway, built in 1854 for a prosperous farmer. Today, the house is used as offices by an insurance company.

Tongue Point Lighthouse (1895)

Tongue Point Light Lighthouse, built in 1895, is on the west side of the entrance to Bridgeport Harbor, on the east end of Tongue, or Wells, Point. Originally known as Bridgeport Breakwater Light, it stood at the end of a protective breakwater, built in 1891. There was no dwelling for the lighthouse keeper until Keeper C. Adolphus McNeil built a shack on the landing dock. After his death, in 1904, his wife Flora McNeil became the lightkeeper, while also running a manicure business in downtown Bridgeport. In 1919, when the breakwater was shortened, the cast-iron lighthouse was dismantled and moved 275 feet inland. The Tongue Point Light, also known as “The Bug,” was automated in 1954. The Coast Guard was going to remove the lighthouse in 1967, but local boaters protested.