A number of mariners named Captain Charles Williams lived in Old Saybrook over the years. One of them (perhaps the Capt. Charles Williams who died on his birthday at the age of 75 on June 4, 1883?) built the Greek Revival House at 48 Cromwell Place on Saybrook Point in Old Saybrook in 1842.
The Edgar Dickinson House at 24 North Cove Road in Old Saybrook was built c. 1700. It was renovated in 1996.
Edward Everett Honiss (1866-1927) operated a grocery and general merchandise store in East Berlin. He was one of a series of men who had run the store, as described by Catharine Melinda North in her History of Berlin (1916):
From the time as far back as the memory of the oldest living person goes, a prosperous store has been conducted at the stand south of the Freedom Hart place, which for many years has borne the sign of Henry N. Galpin.
Names obtained of those who have been at the head of the business here are as follows: Orrin Beckley, about 1810; Samuel Porter (died 1838, aged eighty-eight); Horace Steele & Dr. David Carpenter; Plumb & Deming, 1835; Benjamin Wilcox; S. C. Wilcox; Galpin & Loveland; Henry N. Galpin; Strickland Bros., and lastly E. E. Honiss. This store formerly carried a line of everything that the community might need, including drugs. Physicians’ prescriptions were compounded here until, by mutual agreement, H. N. Galpin surrendered his drug department to Alfred North, who, in exchange, gave up the sale of his drygoods to Mr. Galpin.
The Honiss family also had interests in a flour and grist mill. E.E. Honiss’ substantial Queen Anne house, built around 1893, is located at 255 Berlin Street in East Berlin.
The mill village of Yantic in Norwich was home to the Yantic Woolen Company Mill. In 1824 Erastus Williams purchased a preexisting mill and enlarged it to produce woolen products. He and his wife, Elizabeth Dorr Tracy, oversaw the organization of Grace Episcopal Church in Yantic in 1853. Their daughter Elizabeth was the first church organist. Erastus was succeeded by his son and then by his grandson, Winslow Tracy Williams. Under the latter’s administration a new Grace Episcopal Church was erected. It was dedicated in 1902.
Charles Hanover was a glassblower at the Coventry Glassworks, which was in operation from 1815 to 1849. The house at 941 North River Road in Coventry was built for him in 1825.
Built c. 1799 by master Ebenezer Learned, master carpenter, the house at 157 Broadway in Norwich was probably originally a Federal style building. In May 1812 the property was deeded to B. M. Ballou and in 1861 it was bought by Connecticut Governor William Alfred Buckingham for his daughter, Eliza Coit Buckingham, and son-in-law, General William Appleton Aiken (1833-1929). That same year, in late April, Gen. Aiken was dispatched by Gov. Buckingham on a mission to Washington, D. C. to assure President Lincoln of Connecticut’s support in the Civil War.
In 1867 Aiken mortgaged the house the enlarge it and remodel it in the Greek Revival style with a columned portico. He made further alterations in 1880 and 1890. It remained in the Aiken family until 1940 when Aiken’s daughter Mary sold it. In 1950 the house was bought by architect John E. McGuire who in 1957 partitioned the interior to rent out half the house as apartments.
Brothers Daniel and Hezekiah Scovil, Jr. founded the the D. & H. Scovil Hoe Company in 1844. Their father, Hezekiah Scovil, Sr. was a blacksmith in Higganum. Daniel Scovil had traveled through the south and observed the methods and tools used by slaves in cultivating cotton. He was inspired to invent an improved type of hoe called a “planters hoe” that was self-sharpening. He approached his brother Hezekiah to partner with him in manufacturing and marketing the new hoe. Like his brother, Hezekiah had been trained as a blacksmith, but due to poor health he had taken a job as a teller at the Middletown Savings Bank. The brothers’ new company thrived for over sixty years. Hezekiah married Caroline A. Bonfoey, daughter of Benanual Bonfoey, in 1860. Fifteen years later he built a grand Gothic Revival house at 72 Maple Avenue East in Higganum. Hezekiah and his wife passed away in the first decade of the twentieth century and the house was inherited by their great-nephew Whitney S. Porter. In 1947 it was sold out of the family. In 1963 it was purchased by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich for use as a convent. Since 1982 it has again been a private residence. (more…)
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