The John E. Luddy House (1921)

At 261 Broad Street in Windsor is the house built by John E. Luddy in 1921. Luddy, manager of the Connecticut Leaf Tobacco Association, was the founder of the Windsor Company, a textile manufacturer which produced shade cloth. This gauze-like cloth was used to protect the growing shade tobacco from the sun. Luddy also set up a trust fund to support the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Historical Society. Luddy’s house and carriage house were sold to the Town of Windsor in 1964 and today the Luddy House is home to the Windsor Chamber of Commerce.

Stony Hill School (1856)

On the west side of Windsor Avenue in Windsor is a brick one-room schoolhouse called Stony Hill School. It was built around 1856 and originally stood across the street, but was moved to its present location in 1899 and rebuilt in the colonial revival style. The current site is on land deeded to the Board of Education by Dr. Erastus E. Case in exchange for land on the other side of Windsor Avenue. After the building ceased being used as a school in 1969, Case’s heirs sued the town, claiming that this violated Case’s deed. The town settled the lawsuit with a payment to the heirs. The school, which was damaged when a pine tree fell on it in 1970, has since been restored as a historic site and educational facility through the efforts of the Friends of Stony Hill School.

Martin Barber House (1835)

One of a number of brick houses on Windsor Avenue in Windsor, the Martin Barber House at no. 992 was built around 1835. Barber bought the land, probably with the already completed house, from Margaret Roberts in 1839. Martin Barber ran a brick yard, with his brother Edward, located just south of his house. The house later passed to Barber’s wife, Eliza, in 1877 and then to his daughter, Caroline Barber Adams.

Elijah Barber House (1790)

The Elijah Barber House, built in 1790, is at 227 Windsor Avenue in Windsor. Elijah Barber was a farmer who, like others at the time on Windsor Avenue, also made bricks. In 1798, John Warner Barber, the second of six children of Elijah and Mary Warner Barber, was born. He would take on additional farm work after his father’s death, in 1812, but was soon working as an apprentice to Abner Reed, an engraver in East Windsor Hill. Barber would become an artist and historian, writing Connecticut Historical Collections (1837), A History of the Amistad Captives (1840), Massachusetts Historical Collections (1848) and History and Antiquities of New Haven, Conn. (1856). The Barber House was later owned by the Wilson family for over a century. The house was converted into the Second French Empire style in 1878, with the addition of a new porch and mansard roof.

William Loomis House (1795)

The William Loomis House (also known as the Deacon Warner House) in Windsor was built on the corner Broad and Elm Streets, facing Broad Street Green, in the 1790s, or perhaps as late as 1805. Horace Clark moved the house to 31 Elm Street around 1897, detaching the house’s kitchen ell, which was the earlier Deacon John Moore House, now next door to the Loomis House at 37 Elm Street. Clark sold the house to Dr. Clyde A. Clark in 1906.

Deacon John Moore House (1664)

John Moore, ordained a deacon in 1651, was one of the original settlers of Windsor, arriving in 1635 with the Dorchester group, led by the Reverends Maverick and Warham. Moore was a woodworker associated with the “Foliated Vine Group” of seventeenth-century chests. Moore’s house, built around 1664, originally stood on the east side of Broad Street Green. In the late eighteenth century, the large house of William Loomis was built on the west side of the Green and the old Deacon Moore House was moved and attached to the rear of the new house as a kitchen ell. By the end of the nineteenth century, the combined house was owned by Horace Clark, who detached the ell around 1897 and moved it to 37 Elm Street. In its new location, the Moore House originally had its gable end to the street, but was later moved to face the street. The house originally had the large center chimney typical of First Period Colonial houses.