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

Fred W. Lang House (1893)

In the 1890s the Berlin Iron Bridge Company in East Berlin was expanding and this led to a real estate boom. Fred W. Lang purchased land from Mary O. Bunce, who was very active in the real estate market at the time, and built four adjacent Victorian Vernacular houses on Main Street which he rented to the Bridge Company’s employees. The least altered of these is at 129 Main Street. According to the 1891 Berlin Agricultural Fair Bulletin, Fed W. Lang ran a bakery cart to Kensington, Berlin, East Berlin, Westfield, and West Cromwell from corner of Hart and Hawkins Streets in New Britain. In the 1880 census his occupation is listed as Retail Bread Dealer.

Col. Richard Wilcox House (1802)

The house at 239 Berlin Street in East Berlin is believed to have been built in 1802 by Colonel Richard Wilcox (1780-1839). His second wife was Olive Porter. The house originally had a hip roof and two chimneys, but this was altered in the twentieth century to provide more attic space. The double front doors date to c. 1900. There was once a front porch across the full width of the front facade (note the band of darker brick between the two floors).

Nehemiah Payne House (1839)

On the other side of Starr Street in New London from the row of houses built in 1839 by John Bishop is another Greek Revival house built the same year at 28 Starr Street. Unlike the the Bishop houses, it does not have its gable end to the street, although it similarly displays a later Italianate alteration in its door hood. It was the second house on Starr Street built by Nehemiah Payne.

John Bishop Houses, Starr Street, New London (1839)

Starr Street in New London is a narrow street lined with houses built for middle class families during the city’s whaling heyday. Primarily in the Greek Revival style, many of them were built by the same carpenter, John Bishop. Charles Culver had a rope walk on the site which burned in 1834. He then sold the land as a real estate development. The new street was named for the C. Starr and Company Soap and Candle Factory, which was at one end. Most of the houses were constructed in the 1830s and 1840s on narrow building lots. They were erected right on the street line with not much space between them. The early residents included many whose occupations supported the whaling industry. There were grocers, ship carpenters, blacksmiths, teachers, ship captains, a whaling agent, a tavern keeper, a doctor, a plumber and later in the century, a railroad clerk and an engineer. Some were used as boarding houses run by a single woman or a widow. More houses were built on the site of the factory after it closed. Later houses include examples of the Queen Anne style. Many of the original Greek Revival houses were later updated in the Italianate style (note the Italianate hoods over the doors of the houses pictured below).

In the 1970s the houses on Starr Street were slated for demolition, but in 1977 most of them were bought by the Savings Bank of New London, which restored them and sold them to private owners. In 1981 Starr Street became the city’s first historic district and the Starr Street Association was formed to maintain the historic integrity of the properties.

Five of the houses built on Starr Street in 1839 were erected by John Bishop (the row shown in the photo at the top of this post, from left to right: Nos. 25, 23, 19, 17 & 15; the house on the far right, #11, dates to 1836). (more…)

Middletown National Bank (1917)

The Middletown Bank opened in 1801 in the home of Nehemiah Hubbard. As described in the History of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1884):

The Middletown National Bank, formerly the Middletown Bank, was chartered October 29th 1795. The organization was not completed, however, until May 1st 1801. The stockholders met at that time at Mrs. Sarah Goodwin’s Tavern and elected the following directors: Elijah Hubbard, Chauncey Whittlesey, Nehemiah Hubbard jr., Samuel Watkinson, Benjamin Williams, Ebenezer Sage, George Hallam, Joseph Hart, and Elias Shipman.

The first meeting of the directors was held May 13th 1801. Elijah Hubbard was chosen president, and Timothy Southmayd, cashier.

The bank constructed a building on Main Street in 1813, replacing it with a brownstone structure in 1855-1856, which was enlarged in 1893. This building was then replaced in 1917 by the bank’s third building on the site (267 Main Street). The Middletown National Bank was bought by the Connecticut Bank and Trust Co. in 1957. The building is now a branch of Bank of America. (more…)

O’Brian Funeral Home (1890)

Since 1942, the house at 24 Lincoln Avenue in the Forestville section of Bristol has been the O’Brian Funeral Home, which had been founded in downtown Bristol in 1909. According to the Funeral Home’s website, the house was built in 1890 as a wedding gift from Elias N. Welch to his daughter H. Drusilla Mitchell, but H. Drusilla Mitchell was married to George H. Mitchell in 1857 and her father was Elisha N. Welch, who died in 1887. The website also states that the house’s facade facing East Main Street was designed to resemble a riverboat with its rounded stern and double deck.

North Stonington Congregational Church (1848)

The Ecclesiastical Society for the North section of Stonington first met in 1721. The Society soon built a meeting house at “Meeting House Corner,” at the intersection of Wyassup and Reutemann Roads. The building, which became known as “the old black meeting house” because of the weathered condition of its unpainted wood, was taken down in 1817 and its wood was used to build a new meeting house at what is now 89 Main Street in North Stonington. Earlier, in 1746, the congregation had been divided. Influenced by the preaching of James Davenport of Long Island, a “New Light” preacher, many left the church to join a new Separate Church, called the Strict Congregational Church. They built their own meeting house over a mile west of North Stonington (Milltown) village. By 1817 the two churches had grown closer and both needed a new meeting house. They shared the newly erected building, officially reuniting as one church in 1827. The current meeting house was built in 1848 on the site of the 1817 edifice. In 1886, funds donated by Dudley R. Wheeler provided the church with stained glass windows and cherry wood pews, pulpit and wainscoting. The church was rededicated in April, 1887.