In the mid-nineteenth century, Captain William Hall arrived in the Bridgeport village of Black Rock. He purchased the four shipyards in Black Rock and began large-scale shipbuilding operations, which lasted until his death in 1860. At one time, he employed 90 men, one of whom was Curtis Raymond, whose house still stands at 245 Ellsworth Street in Black Rock. Built in 1856, the formerly Italianate-style house has undergone much remodeling over the years and has lost its front veranda.
February is Black History Month! At 61 F.D. Oates (formerly Mahl) Avenue in Hartford is a house constructed about 1897. It is one among the many two-family houses on the street constructed by developer Frederick Mahl between 1893 and 1898. The house at No. 61 is notable because it was the home of Marietta Canty (1905–1986), an African American actress who appeared in theater, radio, motion pictures and television from the 1930s to the 1950s. She is best remembered for her roles in such films as Father of the Bride (1950) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The house was purchased by her father, Henry Canty, in 1930. Marietta Canty lived in the house after her retirement from acting in 1955 to care for her father. She also continued her social and political activism, for which she received many awards.
The Congregational Church in Plymouth Hollow (which would become the Town of Thomaston in 1875) was founded in 1837 and the congregation’s meeting house was built the following year. The First Congregational Church of Thomaston is a Greek Revival edifice located at 135 Main Street.
At 115 North Main Street in Southington is a house built in 1798. It has later alterations in the Greek Revival style (the cornices and gable pediment) and a later Italianate-style front porch.
At 43 North Elm Street in Wallingford is a house built in 1789 and known as the John Hall House. One website notes that Jeremiah Hall, a descendent of the early Wallingford settler John Hall, once farmed land behind the house. The house is now owned by Choate Rosemary Hall and is used as a faculty residence.
Abraham Coan was the architect-builder of the house at 1 State Street in Guilford, constructed in 1803 for Leonard Chamberlain and his wife, Mary Ann Collins, the daughter of Friend Collins, whose house is next door. Around 1817, Chamberlain sold the house to Samuel Eliot, a prominent merchant.
Among the numerous brick houses built in Windsor in the early nineteenth century is the Quartus Bedortha House at 54 Poquonock Avenue. It was built by Quartus Bedortha in 1835. He was born in Agawam, Mass. on February 21 1808, married Ruth Loomis on February 28, 1832 (they had two children) and died on August 4, 1879.
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