Towns - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Gideon Welles House (1783)

The Gideon Welles House, on Hebron Avenue in Glastonbury, was built in 1783 by Samuel Welles, a Revolutionary War captain, for his son of the same name, who had married Anna Hale in 1782. The most famous member of the Welles family to live in the house was Gideon Welles, who was born there in 1802 and would become Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy during the Civil War. The house was inherited by Gideon‘s brother Thaddeus Welles, but Gideon Welles made a notable return visit in 1864 for the funeral of his nephew, who had been a casualty of the war. During the visit, Welles sat on the porch with Admiral David G. Farragut to plan what would become the successful Union victory at the Battle of Mobile Bay. Gideon Welles had been living in a house on Linden Place in Hartford before the Civil War and later lived in a house on Charter Oak Place. Welles also wrote about his time in Lincoln’s cabinet in his book, Lincoln and Seward and in his posthumously published diary.

The house was lived in by members of the Welles family until 1932. It was originally located where the Welles-Chapman Tavern now stands, but was going to be demolished in 1935 to make way for a Post Office. Dr. Lee J. Whittles and others in town formed a committee to save the house and in 1936, Ernest Victor Llewellyn purchased the house and moved it to a neighboring lot on the New London Turnpike (Hebron Avenue). This committee would eventually become the Historical Society of Glastonbury. In 1974, the house was again moved further up Hebron Avenue to become a Senior Center. Still owned by the town today, the building now houses businesses and shops.

The Buell-Cook House (1877)

Built on South Street in Litchfield in 1877, when the Gothic Style was still popular, the Buell-Cook House survived the early twentieth-century Colonial Revival transformation of the town, although the home is now painted a Colonial Revival influenced white, rather than its original dark colors. The house was originally a duplex, but in 1982, it was converted for use by a single family.

Sheldon’s Tavern (1760)

The house built by Elisha Sheldon, on North Street in Litchfield in 1760, is commonly known as Sheldon’s Tavern, because it served as one in the late eighteenth century. There is a tradition that George Washington slept in the house. In 1795, the house’s then owner, Uriah Tracy, hired builder William Sprats to add the central pavilion and Palladian window, which resemble those of the house Sprats designed for Julius Deming across the street. Tracy was a US Congressman and Senator. His son-in-law, James Gould, was the partner of Tapping Reeve at the Litchfield Law School and continued running it after Reeve’s death. The Tavern, also once known as the Gould House, is notable for having shingles rather than the clapboards typical in the eighteenth century.

First Congregational Church of Litchfield (1829)

Litchfield‘s first meeting house was built on the Green in 1723, the second in 1761 and the third in 1829. In 1873, a fourth church, in the High Victorian Gothic style, was built and the 1829 Federal-style structure, with its steeple removed as was typically done with deconsecrated churches, was moved around the corner. In the coming years it would serve as a community center and theater, known as Amory Hall or Colonial Hall. In the early twentieth century, tastes had shifted back from favoring the Gothic to an interest in the Colonial Revival. In 1929, the Gothic church was demolished and the 1828 church returned to its original site on Torrington Road and restored, complete with a new steeple (1929-30). Reconsecrated, it continues today as the First Congregational Church of Litchfield.

Harkness Memorial Tower (1917)

The most recognizable structure at Yale University is the Harkness Memorial Tower. Designed by James Gamble Rogers, with ornamentation by the sculptor, Lee Lawrie, the Gothic-style tower has long stood as a symbol for Yale. It was constructed between 1917 and 1921 and was donated by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her deceased son, Charles William Harkness, Yale class of 1883. Rodgers, who designed many buildings at Yale in the Collegiate Gothic style, was also the architect for the Harkness family. He said the design for the Tower was inspired by the 15th-century tower of “Boston Stump,” the parish church of Saint Botolph in Boston, England. Apparently, the often told story that Harkness Tower was once the tallest freestanding stone structure in the world is a myth. Inside, the Tower contains the Yale Memorial Carillon, which was originally installed in 1922 and expanded in 1964. It is played by Yale University Guild of Carillonneurs.

The Hezekiah Thompson House (1760)

Hezekiah Thompson, born in New Haven in 1735, decided to set aside his occupation as a saddler at the age of 30 and began to study the law. In 1760, he built a house in Woodbury, where he was one of the town’s first lawyers, continuing his practice until 1795. Thompson also served in the State Assembly. The house was owned by the Averill family in the nineteenth century and was known as the Averill Mansion. The Hezekiah Thompson House and Garden were restored in 1983 and again in 2007. Today the home houses an antiques dealership (specializing in Swedish antiques), but is currently for sale.

Nathan Hale Homestead (1776)

This Fourth of July we celebrate Connecticut’s State Hero by featuring the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry, now a historic house museum operated by Connecticut Landmarks. In 1776, Nathan Hale, who was gathering intelligence for George Washington and the Continental Army, was captured by the British and hanged in New York as a spy. Before his death, he is said to have spoken the famous last words, possibly derived from Addison‘s influential play, Cato, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” In that same year, his father, Deacon Richard Hale, razed and rebuilt the family homestead (the Hales had lived on the property since 1740) to provide more space space. Nathan Hale had been born in the earlier house, built in 1746, and would never see the new house, which was completed a month after his execution. Deacon Richard Hale died in 1802. By the early twentieth century, the house was in disrepair, but was purchased in 1914 and restored by George Dudley Seymour, a lawyer and antiquarian who was great admirer of Natan Hale. He also purchased the nearby Strong-Porter House, home of the uncle of Nathan Hale’s mother. When Seymour died in 1945, the house was bequeathed to the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society, now Connecticut Landmarks.

Today’s Independence Day post at Historic Buildings of Massachusetts is Boston’s Faneuil Hall!