The house at 455 Main Street in Middlefield was built in 1805 by Esquire Eli Coe (1758-1835), a prosperous farmer, on the site of his father David Coe‘s former homestead. Eli Coe served as Justice of the Peace and selectman of Middletown. A later owner (1867-1888) was Rev. Spofford D. Jewett. During his ownership the house served as a post office.
Powder Hollow, in the Hazardville section of Enfield, was once the site of the Hazard Powder Company, which flourished in the mid-nineteenth century. The company furnished an estimated 40% of all the gunpowder used during the Civil War. Surviving friom the company’s original complex of buildings is a barn built around 1845. Constructed as a horse barn, it was converted by Ralph Sweet for Square Dancing in 1959. The Powder Mill Barn (also known as the Powder Hollow Barn) is also a popular rental hall for weddings, auctions and other events.
The Second Baptist Church of Suffield was established in 1805 by members of the First Baptist Church. The original wooden church was replaced by a brick Greek Revival edifice in 1840, located at 100 North Main Street. The church was designed by local architect Henry Sykes, who had trained under Chauncey Shepherd of Springfield and Ithiel Town of New Haven. Additions were made to the church in 1953 and 1959.
Built around 1785 by Moses Downs, the house at 639 South Britain Road in Southbury served for many years as the parsonage of the South Britain Congregational Church. The house has a Greek Revival door surround, added in the 1830s or 1840s.
Happy Independence Day! The Nathan Lester House & Farm Tool Museum on Long Cove and Vinegar Hill roads (153 Vinegar Hill Road) in Gales Ferry is owned by the town of Ledyard. A typical Connecticut farmhouse of the period, the Lester House was built in 1793 by Nathan Lester, whose father, Peter Lester, had originally purchased the farm. The house is also known as the Larrabee House because Hannah Gallup Lester, Nathan’s only child, married Captain Adam Larrabee. The house remained in the family until 1908, when it was bought by Dr. and Mrs. Charles B. Graves. In 1965, as a memorial to her parents, Elizabeth Graves Hill gave the house and 11 acres of land to the Town of Ledyard. This property included the Ledyard Oak, which was the second largest white oak in the country and appears on the Ledyard town seal. The tree was officially declared dead in June, 1969. A new white oak was planted near the original Ledyard Oak in 2009.
In 1796, Daniel Copp (1770-1822) married Sarah (Sally) Allyn and purchased land in Gales Ferry in Ledyard. Soon thereafter he built a house (64 Hurlbutt Road) and ran a merchant shop in a building next door. He sold the property in 1802 and later moved to Florida. He died in St. Augustine during a yellow fever epidemic in January 1822. His Gales Ferry property was bought by Daniel Williams in 1827 and remained in his family for almost a century. It is said that James McNeil Whistler visited the house and admired its large central hearth.
The house at 37 Main Street in North Stonington was built in 1791 by Noah Grant Jr. (1747-1801), a distant relative of Ulysses S. Grant. The rear ell was originally a separate building that was used as a general store by Hosea and Ephraim Wheeler in the late eighteenth century. The house was altered in the first half of the 1860s, when the windows were enlarged and the bay window was added. For a brief time in the early 1960s, the house was owned by the North Stonington Congregational Church and was used as a parish and Sunday school.
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