The oldest section of the house at 172 Barbourtown Road in Canton is the ell, which was part of a house built in 1803 by Reuben Barber (1751-1825) for his son Sadosa Barber (1781-1860). That house stood south of the current house, which according to assessor’s records was built in 1840. Sadosa attached the ell to the current house in 1856. His son Henry M. Barber (1832-1929) also lived in the house, which remained in the family for many years.
One of the older buildings on the campus of Hartford Hospital is the Brownstone Building, located at 79 Retreat Avenue. It opened in November, 1923 as the hospital’s Women’s Building, with a focus on maternity care. It was designed by Carl J. Malmfeldt of Hartford and was the subject of an article, “The Women’s Building of the Hartford Hospital, Hartford Conn.” by L. A. Sexton, MD, that appeared in Modern Hospital, Vol. XXII, No. 5 (May, 1924). The builders were the R. F. Jones Company and its construction was the last time that stone was used from the famed brownstone quarries in Portland. Along the sidewalk next to the building is a fence with a cast iron gate that features the symbol of the Caduceus and the letters “HH.” The building has housed various departments of the hospital over the years, currently being home to the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Clinic and the Department of Dentistry. Long known as the Brownstone Ambulatory Care Services Building, it formerly housed the outpatient Brownstone Clinic, which recently moved to a new space on Jefferson Avenue and is now called Hartford Hospital Community Health.
Today is the thirteenth anniversary of this website!
And this is the site’s 4,300th post of a Connecticut building!
Pictured above is the house at 782 Bantam Road (Route 202) in the Bantam section of Litchfield. It dates to 1790, with later additions. A sign on the side of the house attributes it to Milo Hunt (perhaps the Milo Hunt born in 1765?). In the Historical and Architectural Resources Survey for the Bantam/Milton area, done in 1987, the building is listed as the Benjamin Johnson House because Johnson (possibly the Benjamin Johnson who lived from 1763 to 1829?) owned the property from 1786 to 1790. The next owners were the Hunt family, followed by the Catlin, Munger, Wilmot and Stone families. In 1877 it was acquired by Edith Flynn, wife of Charles Flynn, a carriage-maker who was in a partnership with William Doyle. As related in The History of the Town of Litchfield, Connecticut, 1720-1920 (1920), by Alain C. White:
In 1876, C. F. Flynn and William Doyle formed the firm of Flynn and Doyle, took over the business of the earlier Litchfield Carriage Company, and, until 1911, carried on an extensive manufacture of carriages, wagons and sleighs, reaching in some years an output of $40,000. Their products were of a high standard and their market extended far beyond the state. In 1911, the Company was merged into the Flynn and Doyle Co., which was continued until the death of Mr. Flynn. Mr. Doyle carried on the business for another year, until 1918, when it was discontinued. In April, 1919, the factory was taken over by the Bantam Auto Repair Station.
Doyle bought the house from the Flynns in 1920 and it remained in his family until 1987. The house is now occupied by a law firm.
There were many controversies related to the construction of the Winchester Town Hall building. In 1877, town leaders appropriated funds to build a town hall so as to provide a safe place for the town records. Before most people in town were aware of it, these men had moved quickly to start construction of the building in an area called the Flat, part of the central business district of Winsted. People in other parts of town, who thought that the building was unnecessary and too expensive, felt that promoters of the Flat had stolen a march on the voters, but at a contentious town meeting those who wanted to press on with the building won out. An injunction to halt construction was soon dissolved by the court and the building was completed in 1878. Bitter feelings over the episode continued for many years. The building was expanded in 1887 and 1904 for use by the County Court. Plans for a 25-foot addition on the front of the building fell through in 1910, but when this was finally done in 1927, the structure gained a more convenient entrance at street level.
The house at 16 Main Street in Bethel is thought to have been built circa 1790 by Daniel Barnum, a joiner and cabinetmaker who was the cousin of P. T. Barnum‘s father, Philo. In 1825, Daniel Barnum sold the house to his daughter, Anna, and her husband, John Benedict III. The couple sold the house in 1844 to Dr. Hanford N. Bennett (1818-1868), who sold it in 1853 to another physician, Dr. Ransom Perry Lyon (1826-1863). During the Civil War, Dr. Lyon was a surgeon in the 28th Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. He died during the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana. His widow, Sophia, sold the house in 1871 to the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad. The house lost its original large center chimney when the entire building was moved 150 feet west in 1872 to make way for a new rail line along Main Street that connected the Danbury and Norwalk to the Shepaug Railroad. The building was then used as a boardinghouse for railroad workers until 1881, when George M. Cole purchased the house. He built the addition on the east side of the house, as well as the front porch.
The Stephen Murphy House is located at 32 Pearl Street in Noank. It is a Greek Revival-style home built in 1851.
The house at 124 West Road in Canton was built in 1797 by Loin Humphrey (1777-1854). Loin was remembered by Sylvester Barbour in his Reminiscences (1908) as “a man of keen mind and an interesting talker. I remember him well; he was a noticeable figure on the street, with his long homemade, straight walking cane, extending above his hand several inches. His sons were men of great intelligence and prominence.” The house has an 80-foot rear ell, the roof which partly covers what was once a separate and perhaps older house. Many of the rooms in the house retain evidence of wall stenciling that was done in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It is said that the man who did the stenciling boarded at the house.
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