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

Gilead Chapel (1876)

In 1836, Henry P. Haven (1815-1876; A biography of Haven by Henry Clay Trumbull, entitled A Model Superintendent, was published in 1880) established the Gilead Sunday School in Waterford. In 1876, Gilead Chapel was built at the corner of Foster Road and Parkway North to serve as the home of this interdenominational school. After the school closed in the early 1940s, the building was used for a decade by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. Vacant several years thereafter, in 1969 it was purchased by Raymond Schmitt for his his Historic Johnsonville Village in Moodus in East Haddam. The building was taken down and reassembled in Moodus at the intersection of Johnsonville Road and Neptune Avenue.

Phineas Squires House (1790)

The house at 888 Worthington Ridge in Berlin was built c. 1890 by Phineas Squires. In 1811 Squires sold the house to Rev. Samuel Goodrich (1763-1835), the third pastor of the Berlin Congregational Church, serving from 1811 to 1833. He had previously been the pastor at the Congregational Church in Ridgefield for 25 years. Rev. Goodrich was the father of Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860), the children’s author who wrote under the name “Peter Parley.” Another son was Rev. Charles A. Goodrich (1790-1862), who was also an author of such books as The Child’s History of the United States. According to Catharine M. North’s History of Berlin (1916):

The Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, who was a public-spirited citizen, continued to live on his father’s place until 1847, when he removed to Hartford, where he died in 1862. Mr. Goodrich had a comfortable study in his south yard where he could be quiet while working on his books. That building is now attached to the rear of Mrs. William A. Riley’s house.

The house was altered in the mid-19th century when the ground floor windows were enlarged and the Greek-Revival entry portico was added.

Silas Hoadley House (1790)

Built around 1790, the house at 721 Main Street in Plymouth was the home of Silas Hoadley, a clockmaker. A cousin of the architect and builder David Hoadley, Silas Hoadley (1786-1870) formed the clock-making partnership of Terry, Thomas & Hoadley with Seth Thomas and Eli Terry in 1809. His partners later withdrew to form their own companies and Hoadley continued making clocks on his own until 1849.

Thomas Williams House (1759)

Constructed in 1759, the house at 363 Washington Street in Norwich was the home Thomas Williams, a tailor, who also had his shop on the property. He sold the house to William Beard of Preston in 1798 and moved away from Norwich. A series of small shopkeepers then owned the building.

Clifford B. Wilson House (1915)

The Colonial Revival house at 720 Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1915. It was the residence of Clifford Brittin Wilson (1879-1943), a lawyer who served as Mayor of Bridgeport from 1911 to 1921 and simultaneously as the 56th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1915 to 1921, the same period of time that Marcus H. Holcomb was serving as Governor. According to the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Volume II (1917), “there are few interests of public concern in recent years with which he has not been associated, his influence always being given on the side of progress, reform and improvement.”

William Miller House (1704)

William Miller III (born in 1659 in Northampton, Mass.), a farmer, settled in Glastonbury on land his father had purchased in 1660. Miller married Mary Bushnell of Old Saybrook in 1693. He built the house at 1855 Main Street in 1704 (the date and his initials were carved on the kitchen door latch) and died a year later.

Bristol-Lampert House (1848)

A sign on the house at 22 Elm Street in Ansonia lists it as the “Charles Bristol Homestead” built in 1848. It is also known as the John Lampert House. Lampert bought the house in 1881.