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

Middlefield Federated Church (1866)

On December 21, 1866, the Middlefield Methodist Church was dedicated in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of Methodism. The Middlefield Congregational Church, built on the town green in 1842, stood across the road. By the turn of the century, the number of Congregationalists had decreased. In 1921 the Congregational and Methodist churches became federated and the united congregation rotated services between the two churches each month. After almost a decade this practice was deemed too expensive, so services were afterwards held only at the Methodist Church, the older Congregational edifice being considered unsafe. It was eventually torn down in 1942. Additions have been made over the years to the current Federated Church building, which is located at 402 Main Street.

Daniel Eels House (1782)

Daniel Eels (1757-1851), a cooper, built a house on Main Street in Cromwell around 1782. He moved to Whitestown, New York in 1795 and sold the property, which then had a number of owners until 1802, when it was purchased by William Smith, who then sold it to his brother Capt. John Smith. The house (373 Main Street) may actually have been built at that time, instead of the earlier date of 1782. In the late nineteenth century, this Colonial/Federal house was altered in the Queen Anne style.

Second Wilton Little House (1896)

Having already resided in the house at 122 Windham Street in Willimantic, Wilton E. Little (1859-1903) and his wife Edith Clark Little (1862-1935), sold the house and moved to a new home they built in 1896 at 333 Prospect Street. Little had risen up through the ranks at the W.G. & A.R. Morrison Company.

Sage-Kirby House (1811)

At 93 Shunpike Road, corner of Evergreen Road, in Cromwell is a brick Federal-style house constructed circa 1811 to 1815. The house was built by Eber Sage (1790-1848) on land deeded to him by his father, Solomon Sage. In 1835 Eber Sage’s house and farm were purchased by Samuel Kirby (1771-1849). In 1875 the property was sold from the Kirby family to Patrick Caffrey and remained in his family until 1944.

Isaac Palmer House (1810)

Built around 1810, the house at 736 Main Street (at Cedar Street) in Branford was dated in a W.P.A. survey to c. 1834, perhaps because it has a later Greek Revival doorway. The house was likely constructed by Linus Robinson who soon sold it to John Hobart and Edmund Palmer. The house remained in the Palmer family through the nineteenth century and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the Isaac Palmer House.

Rev. John Trumbull House (1772)

Rev. John Trumbull (1715-1787) became pastor of the Congregational Church in Watertown in 1739. A slave owner, Rev. Trumbull married Sarah Whitman, daughter of Rev. Samuel Whitman of Farmington, in 1744. He was also the uncle of Connecticut’s Revolutionary War governor Jonathan Trumbull. Rev. Trumbull’s first house in town, no longer standing, was a saltbox on the east side of Main Street, south of the church. In 1772 he built a larger house just next to the church. Located at 40 DeForest Street, the house became a tavern (it was Lockwoood’s Tavern and then David Woodward’s Tavern) in the 1790s and was remodeled with a large ballroom on the third floor. Shed dormer windows on the roof and Neoclassical porches at either side of the house were added after 1900.

Isaac Hoadley House (1757)

The house at 9 Totoket Road in Branford was built around 1757, the year that its first owner, Isaac Hoadley (1728-1812), married Elizabeth Blackstone (1731-1818). According to The Hoadley Genealogy (1894) by Francis Bacon Trowbridge:

Isaac Hoadley was a carpenter by trade and probably built the old house in which he, his son Abel, and some of his descendants lived. He inherited his father’s farm in the Damascus district of Branford, and was a well-to-do farmer. He was a leading member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Branford and was its junior warden 1794-1804 and 1806-1807, and senior warden in 1805. He and his wife were buried in Damascus burying-ground.

The house has a Greek Revival doorway, added around 1840 when the house appears to have been substantially renovated.