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

Asahel Strong House (1830)

Asahel Strong (1781-1863) was a farmer and a prominent citizen of Durham who served as Justice of the Peace and five terms as a representative in the Connecticut General Assembly. Strong had a Federal-style house on Fowler Avenue, but also had a vernacular house, built c. 1830 on Main Street on parsonage land he leased from the First Ecclesiastical Society of Durham for 999 years (essentially a way for the Society to sell it). Another house built on this parsonage property is the Robinson-Andrews House, located just south of the Strong House. The 1830 house remained in the Strong family until the 1850s.

Dr. Ashbel Woodward House (1835)

The Dr. Ashbel Woodward House is located at 387 Route 32 in Franklin. It is a Greek Revival house, built in 1835 (or, by some accounts, 1824). It was once the home of Dr. Ashbel Woodward. Born in Willington in 1804 and educated at Bowdoin College, Dr. Woodward served the medical needs of Franklin residents from 1829 until his death in 1885. He also served as a surgeon with the 26th Connecticut Regiment in the Civil War. Dr. Woodward kept a farm and the property has a number of agricultural outbuildings. A local historian and genealogist, Dr. Woodward wrote a number of historical and biographical papers and delivered an address on the history of Franklin on October 14, 1868. His descendants gave the house and land to the state in 1947 and it was later used by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection as part of a wildlife study site. The state sold the house to the town of Franklin in 2000 and in 2004 it opened as a historical museum displaying artifacts from the town’s history.

Tracey-Watson House (1760)

At 3 Devotion Road, at the intersection of routes 14 and 97 across from Scotland Green in Scotland, stands the Tracey-Watson House. Once used as a tavern, it was built for Lemuel Pettengill circa 1760. The house is currently home to the editorial offices of Tea A Magazine. There is also an historic barn on the property.

Masonic Temple, Manchester (1927)

The home of Manchester’s Masonic Lodge No. 73 AF & AM is at 25 East Center Street. Lodge #73 was chartered in 1826 and met in various places over the years before the Masonic Temple was built. These included the the upper floor of a two room school-house at Manchester Green (until 1855, except for a period of anti-Masonic sentiment, when the Lodge met at the home of John Mather, the first elected Worshipful Master of Manchester, from 1827 to 1844), the Center Academy building (1855-1875 and 1886-1913), the Spencer Block (1875-1885), Cheney Hall (1886) and lastly the Odd Fellows Building. The corner stone of the current temple was laid on October 2, 1926 at a ceremony which was combined with the observance of the 100th Anniversary of the establishment of the lodge. The Temple was dedicated on October 8, 1927. The Temple is also the home of Friendship Tuscan Lodge No. 145 A.F. & A.M.

St. Mary’s Church, Jewett City (1907)

St. Mary, Our Lady of the Rosary parish was established in Jewett City 1872. In 1866, when the parish was still a mission, Father James Quinn purchased a small fieldstone church, which had earlier been owned by Episcopalians and then Congregationalists. The seating capacity of this church was increased in 1875 and its stone walls were covered with white-painted siding. In 1891 the Enoch Hawkins estate, located behind the small church, was purchased and it was on this land that construction of the current St. Mary’s Church began in 1906. The cornerstone was laid on Sunday, August 19, 1906 and the church, at 34 North Main Street, was dedicated on on Trinity Sunday, May 26, 1907. Its exterior was built of red brick, Indiana limestone and Portland brownstone with terra cotta trimming. The church’s bell is the same one installed by the Congregationalists in the small fieldstone church in 1838. The church originally had a tall steeple, but it was so weakened by the hurricane of 1938 (it was displaced almost a foot off its base) that it had to be removed.

Andrew Clark House (1740)

Although the Haskell House, also known as the Andrew Clark House, at 45 Ross Hill Road in Lisbon, is a central-chimney house built in 1740, its facade displays the elegant detailing of the architecture of the Federal Period (1780s-1820s). These alterations were probably made in 1798, as that date appears in a panel set in the chimney. The National Register of Historic Places nomination for the house gives its date as 1798. Owner Andrew Clark died in 1831 and when his widow, Elizabeth Partridge, died in 1858 she left the house to her sister, Dolly Partridge Herskell (aka Haskell) and her husband, George B. Herskell. The house then became known as the Haskell House. It underwent extensive restoration in 1967.

Hyde Schoolhouse (1863)

Yesterday I featured the Carriage House at Johnsonville, a now abandoned Victorian-themed village attraction in East Haddam originally created by Raymond Schmitt, founder of of AGC Corporation. One of the buildings that Schmitt brought to Johnsonville is the Hyde Schoolhouse. It was originally built in Canterbury between 1853 and 1863 and was said to have been discovered by Schmitt’s wife Carole in an abandoned state, surrounded by overgrowth.