Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Edmund Gookin House (1724)

The colonial saltbox house at 199 West Town Street in Norwich, adjacent to Bean Hill Green, is listed in assessor’s records as dating to 1724. A sign on the house gives a date of 1723 and the name John Waterman, Jr. This is presumably the John Waterman (1694-1742), who was called junior to distinguish him from his uncle of the same name. John Waterman, Jr. was one of the neighboring proprietors who re-set the green’s boundaries at a Town Meeting in 1729.

The sign next lists “Edmund Quincy Gookin, 1726.” According to Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895), by Mary Elizabeth Perkins, Edmund Gookin, or Goodkin, (1688-1740), of Sherborn, Mass., bought the Norwichtown house of Sarah Knight (who operated a tavern) in 1722 and resided there until 1733, later purchasing a house in the Bean Hill district. Gookin was a follower of the Church of England and the first Episcopalian services in town were held at his house in 1738. According to Frances Manwaring Caulkins’ History of Norwich (1866):

The Gookin House was on the central plat of Bean Hill, “bounded southerly on the main road and easterly on the Green:” (now belonging to C. C. Williams.) The last of the Gookin family in Norwich was an ancient spinster, Miss Anna Gookin, who held a life interest in tho house for more than thirty years, and died in 1810, aged about eighty.

The last listing on the sign is “Lt. Jacob Witter’s Tavern, 1774.” Lieutenant of a militia company, Jacob Witter (1737-1798) kept a tavern/public house at Bean Hill. He was the son-in-law of Capt. Ebenezer Baldwin, who sold Witter his Bean Hill house in 1778. Witter then used that house as a tavern. An intriguing reference in the Genealogy of the Allen and Witter Families (1872), by Asa W. Allen, reads:

Jacob Witter, son of Ebenezer, married and lived on Bean Hill. He had no children and was insane.

Today the house is used as offices. (more…)

Langdon House (1870)

The Langdon House, at 43 North Street in Plymouth Center, was built circa 1870.

Horace Fenn House (1868)

The Horace Fenn House, 32 North Street in Plymouth Center, is a Gothic-style residence built in 1868. As related in New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vol. III (1913), edited by William Richard Cutter,

Horace, son of Jeremiah Fenn, was born August 2, 1833. He was postmaster from 1861 to 1881; town treasurer from 1862 to 1875; treasurer of the Plymouth Congregational Church from 1895 to 1909; treasurer of the Library Association from 1871 to 1909; member of the general assembly of 1887; judge of probate from 1891 to 1893. He resides at Plymouth, Connecticut. He married Ella Calista. born July 8, 1839, daughter of Selden and Lydia H. (Lane) Gladwin, granddaughter of Daniel and Bethia (Buckingham) Gladwin.

They had two sons. Horace Fenn died in 1922.

St. Casimir’s Polish National Church (1916)

St. Casimir’s Church, located at 240 Quinnipiac Street in Wallingford, was established in 1914. The church affiliated with the Polish National Catholic Church in October, 1916 and soon erected a wood-frame church at the corner of Prospect and Quinnipiac Streets. A fire in 1945 destroyed the original steeple and floor-to-ceiling pipe organ. Some years later the exterior of the building was bricked.

William Starr III House (1826)

The house at 150 Church Street in Guilford was built in 1826 by William Sarr III (1803-1846) to be the new home of he and his bride, Amelia Chittenden (1805-1842). They were married on January 31, 1827.

Clark Homestead (1779)

The Colonial Cape at 89 Clark Hill Road in Prospect was built in the late 1770s by Amos Hotchkiss (1751-1820). Merritt and Keturah Clark bought the house early in the nineteenth century. Their children included Gould S. Clark, who settled in Middlebury, and Merritt Clark, Jr., who lived in the family homestead in Prospect. His son, Halsey Steele Clark, would built a new house at 95 Clark Hill Road after his marriage to Fannie Phipps on May 25, 1881. (For more information, see View From the Top (1995) by John R. Gurvin). (more…)

Capt. Samuel Comstock House (1808)

In 1805, Capt. Samuel Comstock II was given land in West Centerbrook (now Ivoryton) by his father. Circa 1808, Capt. Comstock built the house at 123 Main Street (although it may also be an earlier residence, c. 1795, on the site that he enlarged at that time). A sea captain in the West Indies trade, Comstock was the father of Samuel Merritt Comstock, who established his ivory factory across the street in 1847. In 1857, the house was acquired by Marsena Comstock, who started his own ivory business on the property.