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

Archer-Gilligan Murder House (1875)

Today I’m featuring the infamous Archer-Gilligan Murder House in Windsor. The play and film Arsenic and Old Lace was inspired by the true story of Amy Archer-Gilligan (1873-1962), AKA “Sister Amy,” who ran the house at 37 Prospect Street (built c. 1875-1880) as the Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm. She and her first husband, James Archer, had earlier run a home for the elderly in Newington, moving to Windsor in 1907. James Archer died in 1910, a few weeks after his wife had taken out an insurance policy on him. In 1913 Amy married her second husband, Michael W. Gilligan, a wealthy widower with four adult sons. He died on February 20, 1914, again leaving her financially secure. Between 1907 and 1916 there were 60 deaths of her clients in the Archer home, 48 of them from 1911 to 1916, many of whom passed away after paying her large sums of money. Suspicious relatives of her clients brought the story to the Hartford Courant, which published several articles on the “Murder Factory.” A police investigation followed. Exhumations of the bodies of Gilligan and four others revealed that they had been poisoned. Archer-Gilligan had also been purchasing large quantities of arsenic. A jury found her guilty of murdering one of her tenants in 1917 and she was sentenced to death. In 1919, on appeal, she was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1924 she was declared temporarily insane and was transferred to the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane in Middletown, where she remained until her death.

Hadlyme Congregational Church (1840)

As related in A Statistical Account of the County of Middlesex, in Connecticut (1819) by David Dudley Field:

The [Ecclesiastical] Society of Hadlyme was incorporated in Oct. 1742, and was thus called, because it was made partly from East-Haddam and partly from Lyme. The church was organized, with ten male members, on the 26th of June 1745, and on the 18th of the succeeding September, the Rev. Grindall Rawson, who had been minister several years at South-Hadley, Mass. was installed their pastor.

The current church, built in 1840 and located on Town Street (Route 82) in East Haddam, is the second building to be constructed on the site.

Piontkowski House (1880)

Happy Halloween!!! The exterior of the vacant house at 220 Middlesex Turnpike in Old Saybrook was used as a location for the 1971 horror film, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death. Interior shots were filmed about a mile away at the E.E. Dickinson House in Essex. The house in Old Saybrook was owned, then as now, by the Piontkowski family. The house was built in the 1880s as a farm house. By the turn of the century an owner had added the elaborate tower and named it “Fairview Farm.” J.P. Newton, a Hartford market-owner, purchased it from the Denison family in 1889. He set up an extensive farming operation to supply his markets. By 1930 the property was acquired by Fred Pointkowski (1893-1968) and his wife Bertha Kruck Pointkowski (1903-1979). It was inherited by their son, Carl F. Piontkowski (1931-2013). (more…)

William Browning House (1827)

The house at 52 Hurlbutt Road in the village of Gales Ferry in Ledyard was probably built around 1827 by William Browning, who acquired the land that year from his father-in-law, Jabez Averill (Browning married Eliza A. Averill in 1826). In 1822 Browning had purchased the nearby Thames River ferry, which he operated until 1856. He also had a store on the Upper Wharf. He sold the house to Simeon A. Bailey in 1843. Bailey’s second wife, Esther Bailey, sold land in the rear of the property to the Norwich & Worcester Railroad in 1898. Frederick Moulton purchased the house from the bankrupt railroad in 1942. The rear ell of the house was significantly altered in the 1960s with the addition of dormers and a porch.

Captain William Johnson House (1790)

The Gambrel-roofed cape-style house at 29 Joshuatown Road at Hamburg Bridge in Lyme is architecturally distinguished. It is the only surviving example in the state of a distinctive type of chimney vaulting: an arched passage through a split chimney, with an elaborate doorway surround at the back of the passage. The house was built c. 1790-1803 by Captain William Johnson. He was a mason and the second floor has a large arch-ceilinged room that was used as a Masonic Hall. Captain Johnson died in 1818 and widow Mitty soon sold the house, although she returned to Hamburg Bridge in 1848 and bought another house on Joshuatown Road.

Remember Baker House (1733)

Ethan Allen’s parents were married in the house at 112 Sentry Hill Road in Roxbury. The house was built by John Baker around 1733. John’s daughter Mary Baker married Joseph Allen in 1736 or 1737. Their son, Ethan Allen, was born in Litchfield in 1737 or 1738. John’s son, Remember Baker, married Tamar Warner. He was killed in a hunting accident. Remember Baker, Jr. (1737-1775) was only three years old at time. He grew up in the house and nearby lived his cousins, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner. He later joined them in Vermont as one of the Green Mountain Boys who first battled the forces of New York State and then joined the Revolution and captured Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775. Described by another cousin, Norman Hurlbut, as a great frontiersman, a tough, redheaded, freckle-faced young giant, Remember Baker was more hot headed than Allen or Warner. Later in 1775 he left Ticonderoga on a scouting expedition and was killed on August 22 by two Indians who had taken his boat. They cut off his head and placed it on a pole and carried it to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. British officers there bought the head and buried it. The Baker family occupied the house in Roxbury until 1796. A later owner of the house was Treat Davidson, a prominent citizen of Roxbury who served as a Selectman and owned a gristmill.

Charles Perry House (1823)

The house at 564 Harbor Road in Southport was built in 1823 for Capt. Charles Perry (1795-1870), a shipowner and sea captain. His widow, Sarah Fitch Chidsey, lived in the house until her death in 1882. Their daughter Maria Perry then lived in the house until her death in 1901. A Federal-style residence, the house underwent alterations in 1889 when a rear ell was added, a two-story bay window was installed on the south side and an enclosed porch was added just above the front entrance. From c. 1915 until 1925 the house was used as the parsonage of the Southport Congregational Church.

In 1926 the house was acquired by Egbert C. Hadley, who soon hired the architectural firm of Clark and Arms to remodel the house. Under the direction of architect Cameron Clark the bay window and porch were removed and the interior of the house was altered: the original kitchen became the living room, a new kitchen was built into part of the original dining room, bathrooms were added to the second floor and two bedrooms and a bath were finished in the attic. Cameron Clark went on to become a renowned Colonial Revival architect and his partner John Taylor Arms became a leading American etcher. Very few examples survive of their early architectural partnership. (more…)