St. Francis of Assisi Parish was established in 1903 to serve the South Farms section of Middletown, as well as the towns of Durham and Middlefield. The parish’s first pastor, Rev. Patrick McGivney, was the brother of Fr. Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus. The parish’s new church (10 Elm Street in Middletown), built at a cost of $27,000, was dedicated on November 4, 1904.
The house at 500 South Brooksvale Road in Cheshire combines elements of the Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles. Known as Brookside, it was built in 1898 as a summer cottage for Peter Palmer of Brooklyn.
The house at 108 Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire was built in the 1880s by James Gardner Clark. It was sold to James M. Speake in 1905 and then to Susan Hotchkiss in 1909. The house was used to board students of Cheshire Academy in the 1940s and 1950s.
The two identical houses at 22-24 and 26-28 Addison Road in Glastonbury were built c. 1920 as mill worker tenements by the Glastenbury Knitting Company. The company, which manufactured underwear, used an older spelling of the town’s name. These tenement houses were built in the then-popular Dutch Colonial style, featuring gambrel roofs. The mill eventually sold off the houses in the 1930s.
The rear ell of the house at 107 Main Street in Farmington dates to around 1685. It was built by John Wadsworth, Jr. (1662-1718), nephew of the Joseph Wadsworth (1647-1729) who had hidden the Royal Charter in the Charter Oak. The house remained in the Wadsworth family, eventually passing to John, Jr.’s youngest son, Rev. Daniel Wadsworth (1704-1747), pastor of the First Church of Christ in Hartford (Center Church). In 1771, Asahel Wadsworth (1743-1817) purchased the property from his cousins, the daughters of Daniel Wadsworth. He hired the architect/builder Judah Woodruff to construct the front portion of the house, which was completed between 1776 and 1781. The columned front porch was added much later. During the Revolutionary War, Asahel Wadsworth was appointed to correspond with other towns about “Colonial matters” and transact matters related to the Continental Congress. The Wadsworth farm ceased operation until the 1970s but the house has remained in the Wadsworth family for nine generations.
The house at 101 Main Street in Ellington displays features of the Gothic Revival: board-and-batten siding, decorative bargeboards and drip mold window crowns. The house was probably built as a simple version of the Greek Revival style (c. 1832) and later altered (c. 1860) in the Gothic Revival style.
In volume 58 of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1904), it is written that Charles Caldwell
Charles Caldwell and his brother John Caldwell came from Beith, in Scotland, to New England about the year 1718. It is said that they deserted from the army in the early part of the rebellion of 1715. They were aristocratic in their manners, and unaccustomed to the industrious habits of the early settlers of New England. John was married before he came to this country, but Charles was unmarried. Soon after their arrival, they bought a house, a shop or store, land, etc. They were traders. John remained in Hartford, but Charles removed to Guilford. . . [Charles] married, Nov. 3, 1724, Anna, daughter of Rev. Thomas Ruggles. She died May 19, 1760; and he died Feb. 12, 1765.
Charles Caldwell‘s house in Guilford, built circa 1740, is at 159 Boston Street. The house’s original central chimney was replaced by two smaller ones circa 1815 and the front porch was added around the same time.
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