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

Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses (1848)

February is Black History Month! Starting in 1821, free blacks in Bridgeport settled in a neighborhood that would become known as Little Liberia. Only two houses of this nineteenth-century neighborhood survive today on their original foundations. They are also the oldest remaining houses in Connecticut built by free blacks, before the state completed its gradual abolition of slavery. Built in 1848-1849, they were the homes of sisters Mary (1815-1883) and Eliza (1805-1862) Freeman. Initially the sisters leased the houses out as rental properties while they continued to live and work in New York City. Mary’s house, 358-360 Main Street, built first, was either originally, or later added to to become, a two-family house. Eliza house, 352-354 Main Street, is a three-bay wide half-house with a side entrance that had a storefront extended from the facade from 1903 to 2013. A dormer window was added to the house around 1862. Eliza Freeman returned to Bridgeport around 1855, where she worked as a servant for a sea captain. Mary Freeman, who had worked as a hotel chef in New York, followed her sister to Bridgeport around 1861.

The buildings were occupied into the 1980s. By 2010, the houses were vacant and near collapse. The Mary & Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community was soon formed to raise funds to preserve and restore the houses as a museum. Non-historic elements of the houses were removed in 2012. (more…)

Cottage Green Cottages, Enfield (1848)

On Cottage Green in Enfield is a row of four small Gothic Cottages (46, 50, 54, 58 Cottage Green). Possibly designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, they are the survivors of a group of cottages that were erected for factory workers around the now built-over Cottage Green, which was once a grassy square with a fountain or well in the center. This is a less commonly found arrangement for worker tenements designed to appeal to skilled workers imported from abroad. They were built c. 1848 to house employees of the Enfield Manufacturing Company, a hosiery factory founded in 1845 by H. G. Thompson that failed in 1873, after which its property was purchased by the Hartford Carpet Company. A brochure entitled “Historic Enfield,” alternately claims that the houses were built c. 1830 for Scottish weavers employed at the Bigelow carpet mill. Actually, according to the nomination for the Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Mills Historic District, they were built for English-born workers and the earlier cottages, built by Thompson’s father Orrin Thompson for imported Scottish weavers, do not survive today. This type of housing recalls the “Potsdam” Cottages (featured on this last week!) built in 1859 by Samuel Colt in Hartford for imported German workers at his willow ware factory. Pictured above is the house at 50 Cottage Green in Enfield, which is presently more in need of work than its neighbors.

East Norwalk Association Library (1917)

Local women founded the East Norwalk Improvement Association in 1900. Established to care for the needs of the community, the Association began planning for the construction of a Community Hall in 1912. Among the contributions from the public for building the hall was an envelope containing 37 cents with a letter from from an invalid girl who asked the Association to provide free books for the residents of East Norwalk. In response, the East Norwalk Library was organized in 1915 with its first books located in the window of Rundle’s Baker on Van Zant Street. The library moved into the new Community Hall (51 Van Zant Street), now called the East Norwalk Association Library, in 1917.

Old Baptist Church, Haddam (1833)

The Shailer family of Haddam comprised a large portion of the membership of the Baptist Church that formed in 1792 and built a church on the south side of what was then called the Middlesex Turnpike in 1822. A new and larger church was built across the street in 1833, at what is now 1338 Saybrook Road in Haddam. The church closed its doors in 1907 and has since been used for other purposes, including a pottery studio and residence.

Potsdam Village Cottages (1859)

At 13, 17, 21, 23, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45 Curcombe Street in Hartford is a row of cottages. These were built in 1859 as part of Samuel Colt’s factory village of Coltsville. To protect his famous armory in Hartford from flooding, Samuel Colt constructed a dike along the Connecticut River. Willow trees flourished there and this inspired Colt to import workers from Potsdam, Germany, to produce furniture from the trees’ wood. Colt constructed ten “Swiss Cottages” (a style today referred to as “Carpenter Gothic”) to house his imported workers, nine of which survive today. These were built as two-family houses. Most have been greatly altered, but several still display original architectural features, including brick first floors with decorative half-timbering, board-and-batten siding on the second floor and prominent overhanging eaves. Similar in style to the cottages was the willowware factory itself that stood behind them on Warwarme Avenue. Built in 1859, the factory was destroyed by fire in 1873. Today the cottages are across from the park space used as Hartford’s old time baseball grounds. The cottage depicted above is No. 41 Curcombe Street, one of the better preserved examples. (more…)

Otis Bradley House (1810)

There are a number of questions about the house at 603 Main Street in Somers, which is now owned by the Congregational Church next door. It is traditionally dated to 1810 and is said to have been built by Otis Bradley. The nomination for the Somers Historic District notes that it has more of the appearance of a Greek Revival house, c. 1835. It is known to have been occupied by the Otis family from 1876 to 1953. It was bought by the church in 1972.

Wakeman Memorial (1913)

The Wakeman Boys & Girl Club was founded in 1913 by Miss Frances Wakeman (1835-1918) of Southport. She was the granddaughter of Jessup Wakeman, who settled in Southport in the early nineteenth century and became a well-known merchant, and the daughter of Zalmon Bradley Wakeman, a successful businessman who left a large property to his family at his death in 1865. A description of Frances Wakeman and of the club she founded can be found in Volume II of the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917):

Miss Frances Wakeman was reared to womanhood in her native town of Southport, where she has spent her entire life. Her beautiful home, Rose Hill, which commands a view of Long Island Sound and surrounding sections of Southport, is one of the most attractive places in this part of the state. Miss Wakeman is a lady of innate culture, possessing refined taste and artistic temperament. She is one of the best known women of Fairfield county and she takes a most active and helpful interest in the public affairs of the village of Southport and its institutions. This was manifest in the beautiful gift which she and her cousin, Miss Crapo, made to the people of Southport. The gift was a red brick building known as the Wakeman Memorial and erected in memory of their grandfather, Jesup Wakeman, at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, to be used by the boys and girls of Southport as a club house. The building is maintained by Miss Wakeman and in it are found a reading room, a sewing room and rooms for dancing and recreation where the boys and girls may find entertainment amid delightful and beneficial surroundings. Instruction is given to the girls in sewing and dancing is also taught. This building was opened in 1913 and it contains a bronze tablet on which is engraved the following: “The Wakeman Memorial, 1913. This building was erected and equipped for philanthropic work with funds contributed by Frances Wakeman and Cornelia Wakeman Crapo. Their grandfather, Jesup Wakeman, is remembered in its name. On Christmas day of 1913 it was opened to the youth of Southport in the hope that its privileges would enable and persuade them to grow up worthy in the community which the donors love, regardless of circumstances or creed. Their welcome here depends alone upon the regard they show for that which the place provides.”

Another description of the building (648 Harbor Road in Southport) comes from “Still Investing in the Boys Business,” from the Boys’ Workers Round Table, Vol. 1, No. 2 (June, 1918):

Among the new buildings that our workers have not had an opportunity of visualizing is the Wakeman Memorial at Southport, Conn. The accompanying illustration shows the front elevation overlooking the Long Island Sound. The basement provides accommodation for industrial classes, and the two floors above are divided into reading, game and club rooms, together with a kitchen and living quarters for the Superintendent. The extension at the rear is the gymnasium. This building was erected and furnished throughout by Miss Wakeman. Securities were also set aside for the permanent endowment of the work. Southport is a village with few industries, therefore this building not only serves the boys, but is made the center of quite an extensive community work. Dr. George W. Phillips is the Superintendent.

The Wakeman Boys & Girl Club has since moved out of its original home, which is now a private residence. The building was photographed for the Historic American Buildings Survey.