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

Emory Johnson Homestead (1842)

On Johnsonville Road in Moodus, East Haddam, is an Italianate-style house built (according to the sign on the house) in 1842. It was the home of Emory Johnson, who owned twine mills near the Johnson Mill Pond across from his home. In the nineteenth century, Moodus was the “Twine Capital of America,” with twelve mills in operation. Johnson’s father-in-law, Stanton S. Card, owned the Neptune Twine Mills, which he left to his son-in-law at his death in 1867. Johnson had already opened his own mill, called Triton, in 1862. The area of worker housing that grew up around the mills became known as Johnsonville. The two mills continued to be operated by Emory Johnson and then by his son, E. Emory Johnson, who died in 1905. In the 1960s, the house and other Johnsonville properties were acquired by Raymond Schmitt and became a Victorian era attraction. Closed in 1994 and vacant for many years, the property was recently sold.

Col. John Hale House (1784)

At 1278 Main Street in Glastonbury is a center-chimney house built c. 1784 by Colonel John Hale. A 1789 deed conveyed the property from Deacon David Hale (1727-1796) to his son, Col. John Hale, whose house had already been built. Col. John Hale (1759-1817) served in the state General Assembly from 1796 to 1799 and as Glastonbury Town Clerk from 1804-1817.

Laurilla Smith Cottage (1857)

Its steeply pitched roof makes the Laurilla Smith Cottage, at 1626 Main Street in Glastonbury, a distinctive building. The cottage was planned in 1853 by Laurilla Aleroyla Smith (1789-1857) and finished after her death by her family in 1857 as a memorial to her. An artist, Laurilla A. Smith was a student at Sarah Pierce’s Female Academy in Litchfield and later taught at at Emma Willard’s School in Troy, N.Y. and Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary. She was the sister of Julia and Abby Smith, the famous activists who lived in Kimberly Mansion, the house across the street. Smith had planned for the cottage to be her art studio. It is now used by artist Harry White.

Joseph S. Williams House (1899)

A sign on the house (now used as a real estate office) at 62 Greenmanville Avenue in Mystic (in Stonington) indicates that it was the home of Joseph S. Williams, yeoman, and was built in 1899. Joseph S. Williams was no doubt related to Joseph Stanton Williams, whose farm once dominated the eastern side of Greenmanville Avenue. In the 1890s, the farm was developed into an industrial area. The old Joseph S. Williams farmhouse, which stood on the hill east of what is now Mystic Seaport, later fell into disrepair and was burned in the 1950s.

Covenant Congregational Church (1960)

Covenant Congregational Church in West Hartford began as the Swedish Zion Congregational Church, established in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood in 1889. The congregation’s first church building was constructed on Hungerford Street in 1892. Its name was changed to Covenant Congregational Church in 1938. Covenant Congregational Church later moved to West Hartford, laying the cornerstone to its present church on April 24, 1960. Located at the intersection of Sedgwick Road and Westminster Drive, the church was designed by Painchaud and Ryder of Madison, Wisconsin and was built by Bartlett, Brainard & Eacott of West Hartford. The building was dedicated on October 16, 1960. The church, which is Lutheran in theology and Congregational in organization, is affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Edward W. Morley House (1906)

Edward W. Morley (1838-1923) was a famous scientist and a professor of chemistry at Western Reserve College (now Case Western Reserve University) in Ohio from 1869 until his retirement in 1906. He is best known for his work with physicist Albert A. Michelson on the Michelson–Morley experiment (1887), which measured the speed of light, and for his research on the atomic weight of oxygen, which he published in 1895. Upon his retirement, he moved into a house he had had constructed at 26 Westland Avenue in West Hartford, the town in which he had grown up. He built it using dividends on stock he held in the Dow Chemical Corporation. The stock had been payment for his consulting work for the corporation. He continued his scientific research in a laboratory he built in his back yard. He lived in the house until his death in 1923. An elementary school in West Hartford was also named in his honor. (more…)

The Spanish House (1929)

With its white stucco walls, red tile roof and detailed wrought iron work, the house at 46 Fernwood Road in West Hartford is an unusual example in Connecticut of the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Called the Spanish House, it was built for Mrs. Grace M. Spear Lincoln (d. 1971), who had lived for a time in Spain and wanted a house in the Spanish style. She acquired the land in 1927 and worked with architect Lester B. Scheide to design the house, which was built in 1928-1929. N. Ross Parke, an artist, completed the home’s interior decoration, painting the dining room ceiling and several niches inside the house. The building has a U-shaped plan surrounding a central court. The court is paved with cobblestones believed to have come from Asylum Avenue when the old trolley line was torn up. The owners of the house in 2003 received a West Hartford Historic Preservation Award for their work on the house, which included the rebuilding of the original 1929 courtyard fountain that had been almost completely destroyed and buried.