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

Cromwell Town Hall (1901)

The Nathaniel White School, named in honor of an original settler of Cromwell who had left land in his will to be used for school purposes, was erected at 41 West Street in Cromwell in 1901 and dedicated in 1902. The original portion of the building was supplemented with a nearly identical southern block in 1925. Other additions were made to building over the years, which served as a high school until 1956 when a new Cromwell High School opened. The Nathaniel White School was then used as a middle school and, since c. 1985, the building has been the Town Hall of Cromwell.

John A. Woodward House (1867)

John A. Woodward, a carpenter and Civil War veteran, erected the house at 235 Main Street in Watertown in 1867 (it has since been much expanded). Interesting evidence survives of a method employed to sell the house in 1880 in the form of a $1.00 share in the house, the reverse side of which reads:

Share in the beautiful residence property and lot occupied by J. A. Woodward, situated in the center of the charming village of Watertown, Conn., valued at sixty-five hundred [$6500] dollars, and also entitles the bearer to admission to a grand entertainment to be given at the warren house in that town, on Wednesday Ev., Oct. 27, 1880, at which time the residence will be delivered to the shareholders to be disposed of as they may direct

Update: Further information about the house can be found in the brochure for the 2011 Watertown House Tour. According to this document, the first people to live in the house were Eben and Margaret Atwood. Their daughter Amelia married Howard Miner Hickcox who started the Hickcox Funeral Home in 1884. It remained in the Hickcox family until it was sold to attorney Franklin Pilicy, whose 1980s addition doubled the size of the house.

Warren Coachman’s House (1859)

Truman A. Warren, a wealthy Watertown manufacturer, erected his large Italianate house in 1851 (Address: 5 The Green, Watertown). In 1859 he erected a cottage for his coachman next door (Address: 15 The Green).

Wheeler-Beecher House (1807)

Noted architect David Hoadley designed the house at 562 Amity Road in Bethany for Darius Beecher (1768-1833). Built in 1807, the house is considered a major example of the Federal style in New England, both in its exterior and interior detailing. It had a number of owners in the nineteenth century, including Abraham Beecher, who sold it to John Thomas, who then gave it to his son Lewis Thomas as a wedding present. Next it was owned by Orrin Wheeler, whose family retained it until 1899. The house was owned for a time in the twentieth century by Huntington Lee and his sister Josephine B. Lee, who added a wing on the south side where the Gale Electric Company made lamps and reproduced antiques. For a brief period in the early 1940s the wing was occupied by William Edwin Rudge, who published a graphic arts magazine called Print. The cover of Volume II, Nos. 3 & 4 (December 1941) featured an illustration of the house by Hugo Steiner-Prag. There also exists an etching of the house by John Taylor Arms entitled “Old Hoadley House, Home of “Print,” Bethany, Connecticut.”

699 Tolland Stage Road, Tolland (1892)

The house at 699 Tolland Stage Road in Tolland was built c. 1792. According to Around and About the Tolland Green (2002) by Christine Gray, a resident of the house was a Dr. Brace, an apothecary whose medicine bottles are on display at the Old Tolland County Jail and Museum.

16 Tolland Green (1776)

For the Fourth of July, here is a saltbox house at 16 Tolland Green in Tolland that was built in 1776. One known resident of the house was a man named Winters. According to Around and About the Tolland Green (2002) by Christine Gray, he was a proprietor of the County House, the hotel attached to the Tolland County Jail, whose wife refused to live at the jail.

Prospect Congregational Church (1941)

In 1778, residents of the area around what is now Prospect Green withdrew from the Congregational church in Cheshire and formed their own ecclesiastical society, known as the Columbia Society. Their meeting house was located on the Prospect Green, which is the highest inhabited elevation in New Haven County. The Prospect Congregational Society was formally established in 1798 and continued meeting in the original simple structure until a new edifice was erected in 1841, to the west of the Green. The previous meeting house was moved to a another site nearby where it was used by the Methodist church until 1858. After a fire destroyed the 1841 building, a new fieldstone church was erected. This too was destroyed by fire and was replaced by the current church, built in 1941.