Stonington

The house at 170 Water Street, on the west side of Wadawanuck Square in Stonington, was built in 1833 for Sarah Potter Denison Palmer (1785-1862), a decade after the death of her husband, Luke Palmer (1775-1822). Known as the Widow Luke Palmer House, it was described as follows in Grace Denison Wheeler’s The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn. (1903):

The Widow Luke Palmer’s house is one of the old landmarks although none of the older residents seem to know when this house was built; still it is known that Mr. Palmer married Sally P. Denison in 1804, and they lived there. She used to board the men connected with building the Stonington Railroad, Mr. Almy, Mr. Matthews and others, about 1835. The house has been so added to and improved that but little of the original can now be seen. It was owned by Mrs. William L. Palmer, and her heirs sold it to Mr. Henry Davis, whose heirs sold it to Miss Emma A. Smith, and in 1901, the Roman Catholic Society purchased it of her. At various times three clergymen have lived here: Rev. M. Willey, first Pastor of Calvary Church; Rev. R. S. Wilson, Pastor of the Baptist Church, and Rev. A. G. Palmer, who was so long the good minister of the Baptist Church.

Charles Phelps Williams (1804-1879) was a wealthy shipowner and businessman in Stonington. A ship master by 1825, he was soon involved in seal fishery and, when the sealing industry declined, he turned to whaling. According to Hurd’s History of New London County (1882), Charles P. Williams

was one of the largest individual ship-owners engaged in that important pursuit. With its decadence he withdrew from active commercial life, and was one of the first corporators under the State laws of the Ocean Bank of Stonington, of which he was elected president, and whose immediate and continued prosperity was largely due to his admirable management. In 1856 he went to Europe with his family, and resigned the presidency, but on his return he was elected first director, a position which he retained in the reorganization of the bank as the First National.

Mr. Williams took an active part in the building of the Providence and Stonington Railroad, and was for many years president of that corporation.

His keen business foresight had at an early period in the development of the West convinced him of its importance and future greatness, and he became largely interested there. The management of his accumulating property occupied the later years of his life, and he withdrew entirely from active business. I In 1878 the severe strain of a life of intense mental activity culminated in failing health, and on Oct. 28, 1879, he died of a rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain. […]

One of the most marked features of his personal character was the thorough simplicity of his life. He never sought office of any kind. A man of distinguished and commanding presence, of most courteous and polished manners, he was averse to all ostentation and avoided public life. His integrity was spotless, and in the management of all the vast interests which he controlled, with the innumerable attendant possibilities of error, his reputation stood always above reproach. A man of generous impulse, his charities were as unostentatious as his life, and in his death the poor lost a true and a liberal friend, and the State an upright and valued citizen.

In 1840, his homestead on Water Street was moved to 39 Main Street, where it was remodeled in the Greek Revival style and enlarged with two side wings.