Cornwell-Daniels House (1780)

Elisha Cornwell (1721-1781) one of the original settlers of East Hampton, erected the house at 64 South Main Street (facing Daniels Street) in 1780 on land he had purchased the year before. He quickly sold the house to his daughter and died the following year. Amasa Daniels, Jr. purchased the property in 1803. His granddaughter, Caroline Brown Buell (1842-1927) grew up in the house. Her father, Rev. Thomas Gibson Brown, an itinerant Methodist and chaplain during the Civil War, had married Amasa’s daughter, Caroline. Caroline B. Brown, whose husband, Lt. Frederick W. H. Buell, died of malaria in the Civil War, would become a leader of the temperance movement, writing and lecturing extensively and serving as corresponding secretary of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. She retired to East Hampton where she died in 1927.

John Edmondson House (1860)

Children’s Museum at Mystic Seaport

One of the many buildings on the grounds of Mystic Seaport is the Edmondson House, which now serves as the Children’s Museum. The house was built in the 1850s-1860 as a residence for John Edmondson (1803-1875), a textile worker and shipyard foreman. He married Catherine Greenman (1803-1882), a sister of the three Greenman brothers whose former shipyard is now the site of Mystic Seaport. After the Seaport acquired the house in 1942, the building became the Pugsley Clock Shop, an exhibition space for clocks, watches and navigational instruments. It is now the Children’s Museum, which had previously been located in a former work shop and tool shed dating to 1841.

Capt. Evelyn White House (1845)

The Greek Revival house at 608 Main Street in Portland was built c. 1845. It was the home of Evelyn White, a ship captain (he is listed as captain and, with O. G. Terry, co-owner of the sloop Phoenix, built in 1839 at the Portland shipyard of S. Gildersleeve & Sons). He is probably the same Evelyn White who later served a term in the state legislature in 1880 and twelve terms as selectman. By the late 1920s the house was occupied by members of the Gildersleeve family.

Cherry Brook Kennels (1742)

The oldest section of the house at 490 Cherry Brook Road in Canton may date back to 1740s, when the land was owned by Thomas Phelps, the earliest known settler on the site, whose brother Benjamin may also have lived with him. Thomas’ grandson was Anson G. Phelps, the New York businessman who founded the town of Ansonia. For many years, going back at least to the 1950s, the property was home to Rusthall Kennels, and is now Cherry Brook Kennels.