Happy New Year! We start the new year with an Italianate house in Bristol. Located at 19-21 Spring Street, it was built by Joel T. Case in 1881 and was the home of Walter E. Strong, owner of the South Side Market. The house is also known as the Arnold House.
Located at 199 West Town Street in Lebanon, just off the Lebanon Green, is a building which is today home to the Lebanon Green Market. It was built in 1885 by the Lebanon Grange No. 21 as a cooperative store and social hall–the first in Connecticut built specifically for the purpose of housing a Grange chapter. While nationally the Grange Movement became involved in political issues, the Lebanon Grange focused more on its educational and social role, with music playing an important part in its activities. The Lebanon Grange acquired an organ in 1898.
Located at 37 West Town Street in Lebanon, along the Lebanon Green, is a house built circa 1770. It is referred to as the Lyman House in the nomination for the Lebanon Green Historic District. A driveway next to the house leads to the Lebanon Senior Center. (more…)
Ukrainian immigrants in Colchester formed a church in 1921, purchasing a house on Pleasant Street. The ground floor was to serve as a chapel and the second floor as the residence of the pastor. The new church was called the Greek Catholic Orthodox Independent Church of St. Mary. The parish became a member of the Ukrainian Catholic Diocese in 1948 and a church with a gilded Byzantine cupola was soon constructed. The church was destroyed by an explosion on September 10, 2004. The cornerstone for a new St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church was dedicated on Monday, August 15, 2005 and the building, located 178 Linwood Avenue, was completed the following year.
At 1696 Main Street in Glastonbury is a center-chimney house built circa 1795 for Jehiel Hale, who had married his cousin Mercy Hale the year before. The property was deeded to Jehiel by his father Theodore Hale in 1797. A later Hale to live in the house was William Turner Hale, a well-known farmer who also had an ice business. William Turner Hale father, Hezekiah Hale, was a sailor who sailed around the world three times and was on the whaling trip made famous in Richard Henry Dana‘s book Two Years Before the Mast (1840).
Built around 1860, the house at 24 Maiden Lane in Durham is an example of the Greek Revival style. The house was first owned by T.B. Strong. In Durham’s Historic Resources Inventory, it is speculated that this could be Talcott Stong (b.1840), who served in the Civil War, but there’s a tombstone with the name Talcott Parsons Strong (1840-1915).
At 2 South Grand Street at its intersection with Mountain Road in West Suffield is a building consisting of two attached sections. The oldest part of the structure dates to circa 1750. For many years the building was the Terrett House Hotel and tavern. In 1837, the first post office in West Suffield was operated out of the Terrett House, the tavern-keeper serving as the postmaster. The Terrett House was where the second murder in Suffield history took place. As reported in the Hartford Courant on October 28, 1862 (“Murder at West Suffield”):
James Drake, keeper of a hotel at West Suffield, was shot dead on Saturday afternoon by a man named Cullen, a cigar maker, who works at Westfield, but whose family resides at West Suffield. It is said Cullen has allowed himself to be jealous of Drake, (but probably without cause), and has threatened his life on several occasions. Saturday afternoon he came home, and with a loaded revolver went directly to the hotel of Drake, for the purpose of shooting him. He fired two shots into Drake while he was behind the bar, but neither of them proved serious; the latter then ran out of doors and around the house, pursued by Cullen; and as he was again entering the door, a third shot entered his heart, proving fatal
Cullen was soon arrested. The hotel seems to have changed hands a number of times. On April 12, 1904, the Courant noted:
The West Suffield Hotel, better known as the Terrett House, has again changed hands, Alanson Hoffman having sold out his interests to Landlord F. Hart of North Bloomfeld. A telephone service has been added and other improvements have been made.
The Courant reported another sale on March 8, 1910, by Patrick J. Murphy to Charles C. Anderson, “who has had charge of the Buckngham Stables in Springfield for several years.” In 1915, Anderson and James Mitchell, proprietor of the Suffield House, another tavern, were fined $150 each for selling liquor on May 2 to 20-year-old William A. Coulson, who later that same night killed John Wardosky with his automobile while under the influence of liquor. Coulson was charged with manslaughter and pleaded no contest. The tavern-keepers’ fine included the additional charge of “permitting a minor to loiter about their places of business.” (“Liquor Drinking Up Suffield Way.” Hartford Courant, June 10, 1915). An owner in 1990 spray painted the building florescent orange to vent his frustration at bureaucratic red tape that had stalled his efforts to renovate the building to become and arts and crafts mall! A later owner restored it as a multi-family home.
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