
Rogers & Stevens was a men’s clothing store in Norwalk. In 1922 the store erected the building at 27-29 Wall Street, which housed the store on the first floor (now used for a restaurant) and apartments above.
Rogers & Stevens was a men’s clothing store in Norwalk. In 1922 the store erected the building at 27-29 Wall Street, which housed the store on the first floor (now used for a restaurant) and apartments above.
The house at 30 Huntington Lane in Norwich was built in 1778 for Reverend Joseph Strong (1753-1834). As related in the History of Norwich (1874), by Frances Manwaring Caulkins:
On the 18th of March, 1778, Mr. Joseph Strong was ordained as colleague pastor with Dr. [Benjamin] Lord [of the First Congregational Church]. The audience, gathered from all parts of the county, was unexampled in point of numbers, and the services were unusually solemn. Dr. Lord was eighty-four years of age, venerated and beloved by all, but small and frail in appearance, while his colleague, in the full glow of youth and health, large and stoutly built, stood over him like a sheltering oak. [. . .]
Mr. Strong was the son of the Rev. Nathan Strong of Coventry. By his mother’s side, he was descended from the Williams family, who were taken captives by the Indians at Deerfield, in the night of Feb. 28, 1704. The general circumstances of this tragedy are well known. The two little daughters of Mr. Williams who went into captivity with their father were named Eunice and Esther. The former was never redeemed, but being adopted into the family of a chief, she became attached to the Indian manners and customs, refused to return to her relatives, embraced the Roman Catholic religion, and married a chief named Roger Toroso, who resided at St. Johns, twenty miles from Montreal. Esther was ransomed and returned home with her father. She married the Rev. Mr. Meachum of Coventry, and one of her daughters became the wife of the Rev. Nathan Strong, who was ordained pastor of a Second Congregational Church in Coventry, in 1745, and was the father of the Rev. Nathan Strong, D. D., of Hartford, and the Rev. Joseph Strong, D. D., of Norwich. At the ordination of the latter, the sermon was preached by his brother, and the charge given by his father. [. . .]
Dr. Strong in person was above the middle size and stature, and he had a calm dignity of address which impressed every one with respect. This dignity, however, was blended with great kindness and courtesy, and his manners, far from inspiring awe, were gentle and attractive. In his latter years especially, it was delightful to listen to his conversation, flowing as it did in an easy, graceful stream, enlivened with anecdotes and enriched with sketches of character, curious incidents, and all the varied stores collected by an observant mind through long years of experience.
Rev. Strong married Mary Huntington. Their house was built on land her father, Jabez Huntington, had acquired from Peter Morgan. As related in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895), by Mary Elizabeth Perkins:
Mrs. Strong received from her father a large amount of additional land, both in 1784 and at his death in 1786, and Dr. Strong also bought adjoining land, so that their domain covered many acres, but the house site was on the Morgan land. We do not know when the Morgan house disappeared. After the death of Rev. Joseph Strong, the homestead was inherited by his son, Henry Strong [who became a lawyer], and is now in the possession of the latter’s daughter, Mary, wife of the late Dr. Daniel Gulliver.
In 1851 John Haskell acquired property from the Bulkeley family on Main Street in Cromwell. He took down the Bulkeley Homestead, built in the mid-eighteenth century by Jonathan Stow, and in 1852 erected an Italianate house on the site (current address: 358 Main Street). Haskell was a joiner and a partner in the lumber firm of Willard and Haskell. It is uncertain that Haskell and his wife, Maria Wilcox Haskell, ever lived in the house. In 1861 he sold it to Rev. Stephen Topliff, a retired Congregational minister who, from 1829-1838, was pastor of the Third Congregational Church, located in the Westfield section of Middletown. The house remained in the Topliff family until 1905.
Built around 1789, the house at 1290 Poquonock Avenue in Windsor was the home of Hezekiah Griswold, a farmer who fought in the defense of New London during the War of 1812.
In 1822 Solomon Bidwell built a three-floor hotel at 1220 Main Street in Coventry. After Solomon died in 1858, his son Nathan Lyman ran the business, adding a wing to expand the hotel. When Nathan L. Bidwell died in 1877, it passed to his son Charles (died 1881) and then to Charles’ widow Lydia (died 1918). The hotel ceased operating in 1938. The Greek Revival building has a Colonial Revival two-story open porch across its front facade, added in the early twentieth century.
The large brick Italianate villa-style house at 37 Maple Avenue E in Higganum was built c. 1841-1843 by Orrin Freeman, a wealthy bachelor. As a prominent local businessman, Orrin Freeman (1807-1880) was part-owner of a brickyard started by his father. He also ran the largest lumberyard and sawmill company in Middlesex County with his brother. They supplied lumber for the shipbuilding operations at Higganum Landing until 1862. Freeman also served as Judge of Probate. The house remained in the Freeman family until 1904. Eugene Orlando Burr purchased the house in 1908. Between 1910 and 1942 he ran a dairy farm known as Higganum Dairy. The house has continued in the same family ever since. In 1976, to commemorate the Bicentennial, Burr’s son-in-law, Francis Wright “Bill Gardner, Jr., who acquired the property in 1957, painted a large “Spirit of ‘76” mural on the house‘s southwest elevation. The house is now a bed & breakfast called The Spirit of 76 House.
The East Berlin United Methodist Church was first organized as the East Berlin Methodist Episcopal Church in 1864. Services were held at various locations until a church building was completed in 1876. This small building was enlarged to to become the current church at 139 Main Street in 1896. That same year a parsonage was also constructed. The building once had an original Tiffany stained glass window. The church was restored after it was damaged by a fire in 1949.
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