Historic Buildings of Connecticut

The house at 1062 Worthington Ridge in Berlin is known as the David Sage House in the nomination for the Worthington Ridge Historic District. It is also known as the George Porter House. Built c. 1770, it has elaborate Georgian detailing on its front facade. Among its residents were Dr. Josiah Meigs Ward. In 1825, Berlin suffered an epidemic of the Spotted Fever. As related in Catharine M. North’s History of Berlin (1916):

Dr. Josiah M. Ward was then in his prime, and he had sixty cases of the typhoid on his hands. Day and night he rode and visited his patients until he was so exhausted that he would sleep anywhere, even on horseback. Parson Graves and his family in Westfield were all down with the fever, and it was while in attendance there that Dr. Ward fell asleep on the steps of the church opposite the house. He awoke in a chill—the precursor of the fever, from which in his worn condition he could not rally. He died August 25, 1823, at the age of forty-three. Mrs. Ward and three of their children took the fever. One morning the clock struck eight and the children did not come down to breakfast. Diadema, a half sister, went to the chamber and said, “It is late, you must get up.” She lifted the little Samuel, four years old, and carried him down the stairs, in her arms. On the way he spat on the floor, and Diadema reproved him. The children were never allowed to do such a thing as that in the house.

In was the beginning of the sickness. In twenty-four hours the child was dead. Mary was sick two days and died. Laura’s fever ran two or three weeks and she recovered. The mother was restored to health after a second attack of the disease.

In the late nineteenth century, the house was owned by Burr Kellog Fields (1856-1898), a civil engineer who graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1877. According to his obituary in the Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. XXIV, No. 8 (October 1898):

in 1886 Mr. Field accepted an appointment as Assistant Engineer of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company, of East Berlin, Conn. His advancement with this company was very rapid, and at the time of his death he occupied the important position of Vice-President, having full charge of the making of all contracts. During Mr. Field’s connection with this company its business was much extended, and its product introduced into all parts of the world. In achieving this Mr. Field had no small part, and his death has been a severe loss, not only to the company, but also to his associates.