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

Deacon John Shailer House (1840)

The house at 1212 Saybrook Road in Haddam was built around 1840 by John Shailer (1791-1887) on land he had inherited from his father, Lt. Thomas Shailer (1742-1813). A deacon in the Baptist Church, John Shailer was a farmer and school teacher. In 1856 Shailer and his wife Elizabeth Ventres Shailer, with their married daughter Amelia and her husband John Clark, moved to Somonauk, Illinois. The house was sold to Ezekiel Shailer (1810-1867), a tobacco farmer who was also a merchant in New York City. After his death the house was next home to Sorilla, widow of Bazaleel Shailer, until 1903.

Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church (1935)

The Polish National Catholic Church was established in 1897 by Polish-Americans who were Roman Catholics but were unhappy with the Catholic Church hierarchy of the time. The PNC Church today seeks full communion with the Holy See, although it has important theological differences. Holy Cross Parish, part of the Eastern Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church, was organized and built a church at 723 Enfield Street in Enfield in 1935.

Daniel Payne House (1830)

Built around 1830, the house at 27 Park Avenue in Windsor is one of many examples in the town of early nineteenth-century brick construction. The earliest known owner of the house was Clarissa Loomis, who sold it to Daniel Payne, a farmer, in 1855.

Jared Dickerman House (1835)

The house at 3129 Whitney Avenue in Hamden was built circa 1835 by Jared Dickerman (1798-1891), a grandson of Jonathan Dickerman I. Jared Dickerman had purchased the land in 1829. Two of his daughters were teachers in the local public schools. The house remained in the family until the 1930s and has more recently been used for law offices.

Austin M. Lester House (1846)

Austin M. Lester, a successful whaling ship captain, master of the Meteor and the Congress, built the house at 5 Riverside Place in Gales Ferry, Ledyard, in 1846 to become his home after he returned from his last voyage in 1847. After Capt. Lester’s death in 1862, the house passed to his son, Austin A. Lester, who sold it in 1867 to Erasmus Darwin Rogers, who was also a whaling captain. Capt. Rogers is credited as being the first man to land on Heard Island in the South Indian Ocean. He began the era of seal hunting on the uninhabited island. This lasted until 1880, by which time sealers had wiped out most of the island’s elephant seal population. After Capt. Rogers’s death in 1906, his daughter sold the house in Gales Ferry, which has since passed through various owners.

Comstock Hall (1899)

Located at 1175 (1171-1177) Main Street in East Hartford is Comstock Hall, built in 1899 to house a theater (later converted to a roller-skating rink and then demolished) and offices. The classically proportioned building was constructed by Lewis Comstock, a railroad engineer and descendant of an old East Hartford family. In 1926, Comstock erected an adjoining building to the south (1165-1169 Main Street, aka 2 Orchard Street). The two buildings are joined by a continuous first-floor storefront cornice, but the 1899 structure is taller and has a more elaborate classical revival design.

Harriet Welles Turner Burnham House (1879)

Harriet Welles (1856-1931) married Sturgis P. Turner in 1879. They occupied a house on Main Street (either built by them around 1879 or built earlier in 1830). After her husband’s death in 1916, Harriet Welles Turner later married John W. Burnham. Harriet Burnham, who died in 1931, willed her estate in trust for the benefit of her husband. When he died in 1941, her will provided $350,000 to the Town of Glastonbury for a public library to be constructed on the site of her former home on Main Street. The house was moved in 1951 by the R.F. Jones Company to its current address at 2247 Main Street. The new Welles-Turner Memorial Library was dedicated on October 5, 1952.