Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Windsor

Oliver W. Mills House (1824)

Brick-making was once very important industry in Windsor and the town boasts numerous brick houses constructed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the Federal and Greek Revival styles. Industrial brick making in Windsor started in 1830 with the founding of the Mack Brick Company. There were also many brick makers with smaller operations, who made bricks by hand. One of these was Oliver W. Mills (1796-1866), whose primary occupation was as a farmer, but who also had a small brickworks near the Connecticut River. His brickworks have been built over, but his modest Federal-style house, constructed with his own bricks in 1824, has survived at 148 Deerfield Road in Windsor.

Capt. James Loomis House (1828)

The brick house at 881 Windsor Avenue in Windsor was built around 1825-1828 by Capt. James Loomis. A transitional Federal/Greek Revival house, it is one of several in the vicinity built by members of the Loomis family.

Captain Benjamin Allyn II House (1760)

Local tradition holds that the house at 119 Deerfield Road in Windsor was built in 1670 and associates it with Thomas Allyn (1635-1696), which would make it a very early example indeed of a brick house. The house has wood framing which is tied into the brick walls with iron tie-plates. These plates once featured the date of the house, but only the “1” and the “0” survive, although it is agreed that the missing numerals were “6” and “7.” While this could have been 1670, it is more likely, based on architectural evidence and Henry R. Stiles’ History of Ancient Windsor, that house was built in 1760, probably by Captain Benjamin Allyn II, a descendent of Thomas Allyn. Thomas Eggleston is said to have provided the bricks for the house.

Daniel Payne House (1830)

Built around 1830, the house at 27 Park Avenue in Windsor is one of many examples in the town of early nineteenth-century brick construction. The earliest known owner of the house was Clarissa Loomis, who sold it to Daniel Payne, a farmer, in 1855.

John Fitch School (1921)

The John Fitch School, at 156 Bloomfield Avenue in Windsor, was built in 1921. It was named in honor John Fitch, who was wounded in King Philip’s War and returned to Windsor where he died in 1676. He left his estate to the town to be used in establishing a school. His bequest continued to help finance higher education in Windsor for 200 years. The Fitch School was designed in the Beaux Arts style by William Henry McClean of Boston. An addition was constructed in 1929 and this addition was expanded to the rear in 1934. Originally a high school it became an elementary school in the 1950s and was converted to senior housing in the 1990s. (more…)

John Moore House (1675)

John Moore (1645-1718), the eldest son of Deacon John Moore, built the central-chimney saltbox house at 390 Broad Street in Windsor in 1675. He had married Hannah Goffe in 1664. After her death he married Martha Farnsworth in 1701. By 1715 Moore had married his third wife, Mary. A description of the house from 1940 mentions that it had a new front porch and a bay window on the south. These later additions have since been removed and the house restored to a seventeenth-century appearance. (more…)

Col. James Loomis House (1822)

The house at 208 Broad Street in Windsor was built in 1822 for Colonel James Loomis (1779-1862). Built of bricks manufactured by the Mack Brick Company in Windsor, it was once one of a number of residences that once stood on Broad Street across from Broad Street Green. A descendant of Joseph Loomis, who settled in Windsor in 1639, Col. Loomis was the proprietor of the village store, which stood just south of his house. His wife, Abigail Sherwood Chaffee Loomis (1798-1868), inherited Nancy Toney (1774-1857), Connecticut’s last enslaved person, in 1821. The children of James and Abigail would found what is now the Loomis Chaffee School. The house remained a residence until 1970, when it was converted into a bank.