Leverett Thomas House (1825)

Leverett Thomas House, Bethany

Real estate sites date the house at 11 Fairwood Road in Bethany to 1825. It was certainly standing by the time it was deeded to Leverett Thomas by Hezekiah Thomas in 1841. It was acquired by Justus Peck ten years later and in 1889 it passed to his son in law, Samuel R. Woodward. Peck and Woodward ran Clover Nook Farm, down the road. The house was divided into two tenements that housed farm workers. In 1905 Woodward sold the house to Nelson J. Peck, who added the porch on the left side. Peck and his family lived in the house until 1922.

Rev. William Case House (1826)

30 Liberty St., Chester

The house at 30 Liberty Street in Chester was erected soon after Rev. William Case acquired the property in 1826. Rev. Case both lived in and ran a private school in the house. As described in Amos Sheffield Chesebrough and Alexander Hall’s Historical Sketch of the Congregational Church of Chester, Conn. (1892):

The seventh settled pastor was Rev. William Case. He was the son of William R. and Huldah (Loomis) Case, and was born in what was then called the parish of Wintonbury (now the town of Bloomfield), Connecticut, April 25, 1794. He graduated at Yale College in 1821, and after passing through a course of theological study at Andover Seminary, he was settled in the pastorate here by an ordaining council September 1, 1824. He ministered to this people some ten and a half years, or until March 24, 1835, when, at his own request, he received dismission.

Mr. Case was regarded as rather rigid in his theology, but he was earnest and efficient in church work. Two revivals of much power were enjoyed under his labors—one in 1827, and another in 1830 — which brought some sixty members into the Church. The whole number received into fellowship by him was ninety, and the net number of communicants increased from 97 to 127. He taught a select school during a large part of his ministry. After leaving Chester, he preached one year in New Hartford; two and a half years in Middle Haddam (now Cobalt): one year in North Madison; and for shorter periods in other places. He was the editor of The Watchman, a religious weekly in Hartford, for six years, and a teacher in select schools in Higganum and Killingworth. In this latter place he spent eight or nine years, until, on becoming mentally deranged, he was taken to the Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, where he died, April 27, 1858, aged 64 years.

Soon after his settlement in Chester he was married to Chloe Stoughton of Bloomfield, who bore him three daughters and two sons. She died in 1840. His deep grief over her death was supposed to be the incipient cause of that mild form of insanity which afflicted the latter part of his life.

When he left Chester, Rev. Case’s house was acquired by the Congregational Church and was used as its parsonage until 1853. C. J. Bates, who bought the house around 1900, Victorianized it, but it has since been restored to its original style.

Jonathan Foot House (1810)

Jonathan Foote House, Branford

Built c. 1809-1810, the house at 81-83 East Main Street in Branford was originally the home of Jonathan Foot (1772-1851), a cabinetmaker and undertaker. The house descended to his daughter, Clarissa, who had married Dr. Isaac Palmer Leete. The house has an addition that was probably built by Dr. Leete to use as his office. In 1885 the east part of the house was sold to Eliza Robbins and it may be at that time the house was converted to its current configuration as a duplex.

New Place, Miss Porter’s School (1907)

New Place

“New Place” is a dorm of Miss Porter’s School in Farmington. It was built in 1906 at 53 Main Street on the site of the old Rev. Samuel Whitman House. As related by Julius Gay in Farmington, Connecticut, the Village of Beautiful Homes (1906):

Crossing the road up the mountain we find on the corner the square house with the pyramidal roof and the chimney in the center, owned and occupied by the Rev. Samuel Whitman during his ministry. Parts if not the whole of the building are much older than its well-preserved walls would indicate. Tradition says the kitchen was built out of the remains of the old meeting-house and the Rev. William S. Porter who knew more about the history of the town than any man who lived or is likely to live, says that the house, probably the front, was built by Cuff Freeman, a colored man of considerable wealth, of course after the death of Mr. Whitman.

New Place was erected in 1907 by builder R.F. Jones of Hartford for Elizabeth V. Keep, then headmistress of Miss Porter’s School. Mrs. Keep lived there until her death in 1917. She willed the property to Miss Porter’s School. Her son, Robert Porter Keep II, became headmaster in 1917 and he and his wife, Rose Anne Day Keep, resided at New Place until 1929.

St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church, Terryville (1910)

St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church

Ukrainian Catholics first settled in Terryville in Plymouth in 1895. They did come directly from Eastern Europe but initially settled in central Pennsylvania before relocating to Connecticut. They established a voluntary association called the Rus Ruthenian Brotherhood of St. Michael the Archangel in 1902. Having worshiped in New Britain from 1896 to 1904, the Archangel St. Michael Ruthenian Greek Catholic Congregation then began holding services in a school on Main Street in Terryville. The congregation acquired land on Allen Street in March 1905 on which to build their own church. The cornerstone for the new church was blessed on July 4, 1910 and St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church at 35 Allen Street was soon completed. A sacristy was added to the north side of the church in 1944.