The house at 1035 Worthington Ridge in Berlin was built circa 1895. With its varied form, combination of clapboards and several types of shingles and ornamental woodwork, the house is an excellent example of the Queen Anne style. It was the home of Charles A Gillin, who was a surgeon. (more…)
The house at 914 Worthington Ridge in Berlin was built around 1790 for Deacon Daniel Galpin (1754-1744), a veteran of the Revolutionary War. In her History of Berlin (1916), Catherine M. North quotes a letter of Mrs. Margaret Dunbar Stuart describing the Deacon:
Deacon Daniel Galpin was brother to Col. Joseph Galpin and lived next door to Parson Goodrich, my grandfather. He was of a more ardent temperament than Col. Galpin. He spoke in prayer meetings, and was a warm abolitionist.
In a wing of his house was a shop where he whittled logs into pumps. Also his daughter Mary utilized this shop for her dame school.
One day there was a sudden noise and my brother, a little boy saying his letters, was greatly pleased to find the Deacon had fallen over his pump log.
At one time Deacon Galpin put up a sign on his pump shop, “Anti-Slavery Books for sale here.”
This subjected him to some persecution and it was torn down by the roughs of the village.
The house was moved to its current address in the late 1840s to make way for the building of the Congregational Church.
The Hayden-Starkey Store, at 48 Main Street in Essex, was only the second brick building in town when it was built in 1809. A warehouse and ships store, or chandlery, it was constructed by Samuel and Ebenezer Hayden, sons of Capt. Uriah Hayden, and was situated between their two residences. Their cousin, Richard Hayden, had recently built his house, Essex’s first brick building, nearby. Timothy Starkey, Jr., the Hayden brothers’ brother-in-law, became their partner in 1810. It is said that the British destroyed rope and took merchandise from this store during their raid on Essex in 1814. Remaining in the Hayden family for many years, the building became a residence in 1856.
The house at 668 Middle Turnpike in Mansfield was built in 1831 by Arnold Wilson. Instead of a glass fanlight above the front door it has one made of wood. The house had many owners over the years, with Joseph Woodward adding an ell in 1836. The house was acquired by Edwin O. Smith in 1923, whose wife named it “Kendall Green” after the house in Washington D.C. owned by her ancestor, Amos Kenall, who was U.S. Postmaster General from 1835 to 1840. E. O. Smith served in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1932 to 1960 and was president of the Connecticut Agricultural College (now UCONN) from from April through September, 1908. Edwin O. Smith High School, next to the UCONN campus in Storrs, is named for him.
The John Fitch School, at 156 Bloomfield Avenue in Windsor, was built in 1921. It was named in honor John Fitch, who was wounded in King Philip’s War and returned to Windsor where he died in 1676. He left his estate to the town to be used in establishing a school. His bequest continued to help finance higher education in Windsor for 200 years. The Fitch School was designed in the Beaux Arts style by William Henry McClean of Boston. An addition was constructed in 1929 and this addition was expanded to the rear in 1934. Originally a high school it became an elementary school in the 1950s and was converted to senior housing in the 1990s. (more…)
The Queen Anne house at 242 South Main Street in Cheshire was built circa 1895. At that time the land was owned by Annis Williams (1837-1924), an heir of stage driver Norvil Williams, who had an earlier home on the site. The house later became a funeral home.
St. Mary Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church in New London began in the 1840s, serving Irish workers from a storefront on Bank Street. Soon, St. John’s parish was formed and a chapel was erected on Jay Street. In 1855 a new church, St. Patrick’s, was consecrated on Truman Street. The parish acquired a large lot at the corner of Washington and Huntington Streets in 1866 and the following year work began on a new church, designed by Patrick Keely of New York. The parish was renamed St. Mary Star of the Sea in 1874 and the new church was completed and dedicated in May, 1876. The church tower was built in 1911.
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