Youngs-Rowley-Curtice House (1770)

650-gilead-street

The house at 650 Gilead Street in the Gilead section of Hebron was erected c. 1770-1771 (possible dates range from 1740 to 1780) by a member of the Youngs-Curtice family or possibly Abijah Rowley, who in 1768 was sold part of the Youngs property by his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Curtice Youngs, widow of Ephraim Youngs, Jr. In 1782 Abijah’s widow, Hannah Curtice, sold the property to her brother, John Curtice. In 1812 he sold it to Rev. Nathan Gillett, who raised the roof to add rooms to the third floor. Rev. Gillett was minister of the Gilead Congregational Church from 1799 to 1824. His successor, Rev. Charles Nichols (minister from 1825 to 1856), then lived in the house and added rooms to the rear. The house was later owned by Ralph T. “Tracy” Hutchinson, who served as Gilead postmaster from 1859 to 1905.

One of the house’s parlors, featuring elaborately carved wood paneling, overhead beams and a corner cupboard, were sold to Yale University in 1930 and removed by architect and architectural historian J. Frederick Kelly. Curators planned to install the room in the Old Yale Art Gallery Building, but the Great Depression prevented the work being undertaken. The woodwork remained in storage until conservation efforts began in 2009. The room has been on view since 2012 at the newly renovated Yale University Art Gallery.

Old Town Hall, Southbury (1873)

Old Town Hall Museum, Southbury

Southbury‘s first Town Hall was built in 1873 in the South Britain section of town. In the preceding years South Britain had developed as an industrial center and come to rival Southbury’s town center in importance. Annual town meetings had alternated between the two until South Britain used its influence to have the Town Hall erected at 624 South Britain Road, just before a period of industrial decline set in. The building continued to serve as the center of town government until 1964. It is now operated as a museum by the Southbury Historical Society.

Conference House, Glastonbury (1830)

Conference House, Glastonbury

Happy Halloween! The Conference House is a building in Glastonbury, built around 1830, that possibly once stood where the First Church of Glastonbury was erected in 1837. It was moved to another site down Main Street, just north of the Joseph Wright House. Called the Conference House, the church used it for meetings, lectures and concerts. Starting in the late 1830s it was used as a private school run by one of Deacon Wright’s sons. In 1894, Deborah Goodrich Keene, who lived at 2016 Main Street, the Hale-Goodrich House, bought the building and moved it across the street to its current address of 2000 Main Street. In 1911 she leased the house to Glastonbury’s first telephone switchboard. She later converted it into a private residence. Floodwaters from Hubbard Brook almost reached the roofline of the house in 1936.

Chaplin Congregational Church (1815)

chaplin-congregational-church

The Congregational church in Chaplin was organized in 1810 and the meeting house was erected in 1810-1815. As related in Richard M. Bayles’ History of Windham County, Connecticut (1889):

it was accepted as completed according to contract September 14th, 1815. It was not finished as it was intended eventually to be but so that public worship could be held in it. Neither pews, slips nor pulpit were provided, but the people went up with joy to the courts of the Lord, to worship Him in His own house. After a number of years a steeple was built upon the east end of the meeting house, a bell procured in 1837, the pews or slips were constructed, and a lofty pulpit placed for the elevation of the minister. Thus they intended to have their pastors settled over the people. Many years after, one of the pastors expressed the earnest wish to have the pulpit brought down from its great altitude, that he might be among his people as one of them, saying when his Master wished him to come up to heaven he hoped he should be ready, but while he was upon earth he did not wish to be placed somewhere between earth and heaven. The pulpit was brought down as he wished, and yet it was too high for some of his successors, and it has been brought down several feet lower, and now it has only the elevation of the modern pulpit. A number of years since, the people feeling the need of a lecture room or vestry, moved the meeting house about fifty feet on the hillside, and constructed a very commodious vestry under it, where the evening meetings and other religious and social gatherings are accommodated. Thus the same meeting house has been occupied during the entire history of the church, except for a short time when worship was held in the Center school house.

Eliphalet Ladd House (1860)

Eliphalet Ladd House

At 1248 Poquonock Avenue in Windsor is an impressive Italianate villa-style home erected c. 1860. It was built for Eliphalet Ladd, a merchant who owned a store in Poquonock Center. Eliphalet Ladd (1822-1885) was the father of Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847-1930), a noted scientist who made contributions in the fields of mathematics and psychology. Born in Windsor, she spent her first six years in New York before the family returned to Windsor in 1853. Following her mother’s death in 1860, her father remarried in 1862 and Christine was sent to live with her grandmother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She later attended Vassar and Johns Hopkins.

In 1960, the Eliphalet Ladd House was one of a number of locations in Windsor and East Windsor used in the Hollywood film Parrish (1961), which is set on a Connecticut tobacco farm.