A volunteer fire company, initially called Ocean Fire Company #1, was formed in Seymour in October 1882. The following month it was renamed Humphrey Engine and Hose Company #1 and in 1884, after the purchase of a new steam engine, was reorganized as Citizens Engine Company No.2. The company’s original firehouse was replaced with a new brick building with granite trim (current address 26 DeForest Street) in 1892. The tower was added in 1897 and a concrete addition was built in 1976.
The Cummings House, located at 984 Main Street in Coventry, was built c. 1855. The house has a typical New England gable-roofed form that goes back to the Colonial period, but the detailing is distinctively Italianate in style. The 1857 map of Tolland County identifies the owner of the house as J. Cummings and the 1869 atlas of Hartford and Tolland Counties indicates it is owned by William M. Cummings.
Between 1791 and 1801, architect/builder Vini Goodell erected an imposing mansion for Benjamin Bosworth, a wealthy merchant and landowner. Also known as Squire Bosworth’s Castle, this grand Federal-style house is located on John Perry Road in Eastford, near the Congregational Church (Bosworth served on its building committee and removed the previous meeting house from the site). The Benjamin Bosworth House has a distinctive monitor roof. The monitor third floor was built as a Masonic meeting room and retains its built-in benches and has fireplaces at either end. As Janette Trowbridge, a later resident of the house, wrote about the house [included in A Modern History of Windham County, Connecticut, Vol. I (1920), edited by Allen B. Lincoln]:
The framing and sills were laid by the North Star. The hand carvings on the mantels, windows, and doors were elaborate for that time. They were cut with a jack knife by an employee who lived and worked in the house for an entire winter. Squire Bosworth desired a house which should be different from any other in the neighborhood. In this he succeeded, for the house has the appearance of a small gable-roofed house built on top of a larger square-roofed house.
The Canfield Corner Pharmacy is a classic American drug store, complete with soda counter (although the latter is no longer functional). The pharmacy is located in a Mansard-roofed building at 2 North Main Street in Woodbury. The building was erected in 1876 as Stong’s Block by Nathaniel M. Strong, who had begun his drug business across the street in 1867. In addition to the drug store, the building contained a number of other businesses over the years and had a hall on the third floor used for meetings by various community groups. Henry H. Canfield (died 1949), who had been Stong’s head clerk, took over the business in 1900. Pharmacist Curtis Martiny and his wife Vera took over the pharmacy in 1950. After her husband’s death in 1954, Vera Taylor Martiny became a licensed pharmacist and continued the business, serving customers, including Roxbury resident Marilyn Monroe. Vera’s daughter Mary purchased the pharmacy in 1987. The building was restored after a fire in 1998. (more…)
Built circa 1872, the house at 1875 Poquonock Avenue in Windsor is a dramatic example of the Italianate style. It was built by Edgar Mosier and his widow Anna lived there into the early twentieth century. It was then inherited by their son Frank.
Adventists began meeting in the Town of Prospect about 1850 and in 1886 built a chapel on the Green. As described by J.L. Rockey in his History of New Haven County (1892):
The Adventist chapel, at the Center, which is a small but not unattractive frame building, affords a place of worship for members of that faith. It was built within the past six years. The meetings previous to that time were held in private houses, at “Rag Hollow” and other localities. Moses Chandler was one of the most active in the latter movement to give the denomination a permanent place in the town, and the meetings were for a time held at his house. Other members belong to the Tuttle, Tyler, Hotchkiss and Beecher families. In 1890 there were about a score of members, and Seth Woodruff was the minister.
About 1900 the Prospect congregation merged with an Adventist church in Waterbury. Their former chapel, located at 10 Center Street, became the Chapel school house and then the Prospect Senior Center.
The Nathaniel Hall House (perhaps named for this Nathaniel Hall?), located at 48 State Street in Guilford, was built c. 1770 and has been much altered over the years. The second floor is thought to have been added around 1810, at which time the house probably acquired its current Federal-style detailing. An owner of the house in the 1980s removed the c. 1810 front porch and various later Victorian-era alterations.
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