David R. Sloper House (1760)

Robert Sloper of Branford moved his family to a farm in Southington in 1730. His son, Ambrose Sloper (1734-1822), who lived to the age of 89, built a house there in 1760. Having outlived his son, also named Ambrose, who died in 1810, Sloper left the farm to his grandson, David Root Sloper (1801-1887), who was a farmer and cement manufacturer. In 1831 he married Cornelia Bristol, who died in 1837 at the age of 24. His second wife was Eliza Augusta Woodruff. The farm was next operated by David R. Sloper’s daughter, Cornelia Sloper Neal (1851-1948), and her husband Lloyd Neal (1852-1878), and after Mr. Neal’s early death by William Orr (1858-1906), who was married to Cornelia’s sister Julia (1855-1922). After 1905, members of the Pocock family used the farm, which was willed by Cornelia Sloper Neal to the Southington-Cheshire Community YMCA in 1949. The farm has since developed into the YMCA Camp Sloper Outdoor Center (1000 East Street in Southington).

YMCA sources state that the Sloper house was built by Ambrose Sloper in 1760. Heman R. Timlow states, in his Ecclesiastical and Other Sketches of Southington, Conn. (1875), that David R. Sloper “owns and occupies the old homestead of his father and grandfather, on East street. Several years since he built himself a new house, which occupies the same location as the old one.” The house’s Greek Revival style also indicates a later date of construction.