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

Gardner Mansion (1843)

The Gothic Revival mansion with Italianate detailing at 36 Gardner Street at Warehouse Point in East Windsor was built in 1843 (or 1847) for Avah Gardner. The Gardener estate later became a Swedish orphanage and working farm. The property was acquired by the state in 1883 when the Connecticut General Assembly decided to create an orphanage/country home in each of its eight counties. The orphanage served children who had run away from home or were truant. Known as Gardner Hall or the Administration Building, the former mansion has two additions: a north wing built c. 1890 and a section on the east side added in 1921. The building originally had a tower which has since been removed. The state’s other county orphanages closed in 1955 except for the facility at Warehouse Point, which was renamed the State Receiving Home. It was later renamed the Connecticut Children’s Place, serving as a residential and educational center for abused and neglected children. Since 2013 has been the Albert J. Solnit Children’s Center- North Campus, a psychiatric treatment facility for juvenile males.

John Henry Sessions House (1882)

The house built in 1882 for John Henry Sessions (also known as John H. Sessions, Jr.) in Bristol stands at 60 High Street, next to the house built later for his father, John Humphrey Sessions. As related in the 1907 history of Bristol, John Henry Sessions was

born in Polkville, February 26, 1849, and received a liberal education at the schools of Bristol. In 1873 he was admitted into the firm of J. H. Sessions & Son, trunk hardware manufacturers. He was a director of the Bristol Water Company at its organization and at the death of his father became its president. At the time of his father’s death he was elected vice president of the Bristol National Bank. Mr. Sessions, though a staunch Republican, took no active part in politics. In 1883 he was elected secretary of the Bristol Board of Fire Commissioners. On May 19, 1869 he married, Miss Maria Francena Woodford, who was born September 8, 1848, a daughter of Ephraim Woodford, of West Avon. Conn., and one son was born to them, Albert Leslie, born January 5, 1872.

After John Henry Sessions died in 1902, his son Albert L. Sessions took over leadership of J. H. Sessions & Son.

John Humphrey Sessions House (1888)

The house at 52 High Street in Bristol was built in 1888 for John Humphrey Sessions (1828-1899) and his wife, Emily Bunnell Sessions. Both were born in Burlington. As described in the 1907 history of Bristol:

In November, 1854, Mr. John Humphrey Sessions, a young man of 26 years, formed a partnership with Henry A. Warner, and rented a small factory in Polkville (Edgewood, as it is now called), in which to conduct a woodturning business. The small capital which he invested was the result of his hard labors, for early-in life he had been thrown entirely upon his own resources.

This partnership was dissolved in 1865, Mr. Sessions continuing in his own name the business, which at first consisted mainly of wood turnings for the various clockmakers in the vicinity, and which grew rapidly from the beginning.

In 1869 he bought a plot of ground on North Main street, Bristol, and built the main wooden building, now standing, and moved his plant to Bristol.

As the same book also relates:

About 1870 he purchased the trunk hardware business that had belonged to his deceased brother, Albert J. Sessions, and the business was a success from the commencement. In 1879 Mr. Sessions bought the property of the Bristol Foundry Co. on Laurel St., and together with his son Wm. E. Sessions, formed the Sessions Foundry Co. This business, like the others, proved a great success, and in 1896 they moved into their present plant on Farmington avenue.

All his life Mr. Sessions was identified with important concerns of the town. In 1875 he was one of the founders of the Bristol National Bank and was elected its first president, a position he held until the time of his death. He was president of the Bristol Water Company at the time of his decease. He was one of the original stockholders of the Bristol Electric Light Company and was its president until it merged into the Bristol & Plainville Tramway Company; was a stockholder in the Bristol Press Company.

Rev. Luke Daly Houses (1873)

Rev. Luke Daly, a Catholic priest, erected two Italianate houses in Kensington at 80 and 88 Main Street about 1873 on land he bought from George D. Boyer. When Daly died he left the houses to the Catholic Church, which owned them for twenty-five years.

James Norman House (1722)

The house at 409 Washington Street in Norwich was once the site of Isaac Huntington’s blacksmith shop. In 1722, James Norman acquired the property from Christopher Huntington and either converted the existing building into his residence or removed it and built a new one on the site. As related in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895) by Mary E. Perkins:

In 1714, the town grants to Isaac Huntington 4 rods of land (frontage 2 rods), “on ye side of ye hill to be taken up between Sergt. Israel Lathrop’s orchard and Sergt. Thomas Adgate’s cartway,” and here he builds a shop, and in 1717 he receives a grant of land south of this “to build a house on,” but he evidently prefers to buy his grandfather’s homestead, when the opportunity offers, and the land and shop (frontage rods) are sold in 1722 by Christopher Huntington, who has become the owner, to James Norman. James Norman either alters the shop into a dwelling, or builds a new house, which seems to stand on the former site of the shop.

[. . . .]

Miss Caulkins mentions a James Norman, who, in 1715 was captain of a vessel engaged in the Barbadoes trade, and in 1717 was licensed to keep a tavern. This James Norman may be the one whose house we have just located, or possibly the latter was the son of the sea captain. He was in 1723 a “cloathiar.” No record has been found of his marriage, or of the birth of children, but we know that a James Norman married after 1730 Mary (Rudd) Leffingwell, widow of Nathaniel Leffingwell, of whose estate he was the administrator. Mary (Leffingwell) Norman died in 1734. James Norman died in 1743, leaving a widow, Elizabeth, and three children, Caleb, Mary, and Joshua, the two latter choosing their brother Caleb for guardian. The heirs divide the property in 1753-4.

Hudson House (1814)

Known as the Hudson House, the house at 430 Oxford Road in Oxford was built c. 1814 by Timothy Candee, who also built a nearly identical house next door at 426 Oxford Road. A Revolutionary War veteran, Candee also built the nearby Congregational Church for the Ecclesiastical Society of Oxford. His brothers, Daniel and Job, built the Oxford Hotel on the other side of Oxford Road.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Oxford (1835)

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oxford was founded in 1764. The parish’s first church was erected in 1767 on land on Governor’s Hill Road purchased from Joseph Davis. The church was not consecrated until 1816. In 1834 the parish decided to erect a new church, which was presumably completed the following year. The church was enlarged and redecorated in 1878. A new parish hall, connected to the church, was built in 1963. (more…)