The Jacob Robbins House, at 244 Old Main Street in Rocky Hill, has the appearance of a Greek Revival-style home, but the earliest parts of the colonial structure date to around 1770. The facade is dominated by a large Greek Portico, that was only added in about 1920. This may be the home of the Jacob Robbins who is said to have married a niece of Noah Webster.
Frederic S. Newcomb was a dry goods merchant in New London. In 1896-1897 he erected a Shingle-style house at 31 Vauxhall Street, designed by G.W. Dietrict of New York. The house has pink granite on the ground floor, which was brought by barge from Maine. Since 1953, the house has been used as a convalescent hospital called Beechwood Manor.
In 1867, Congregational services began to be held in East Bridgeport in the Bethesda Mission Chapel on East Washington Street. A church was formally organized the following year and in 1870-1871, Park Street Congregational Church was built at the corner of Park and Barnum Streets, fronting Washington Park. The Gothic Revival building was designed by architect Abram Skaats. The church‘s membership peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, but declined after World War II. In 1988, Park Street Congregational Church merged with Trinity United Church of Christ of Trumbull to form Unity Hill United Church of Christ, located at 364 White Plains Road in Trumbull. The former Park Street Congregational Church is now Calvary Temple Christian Center.
Across from Old North Cemetery, on Main Street (formerly Windsor Avenue) in Hartford, are a pair of three-story brick buildings constructed in 1864-1865. Known as the Widows’ Homes, they were built for charitable purposes (housing Civil War widows) through a bequest by Lawson Ives, a manufacturer and member of the Pearl Street Congregational Church (since demolished). Plaques on the exterior of each of the two buildings memorialize Ives’ gift. According to the Annual Reports of the Board of Charities to the Governor for the Years Ending September 30, 1905 and 1906 (1907):
The Widows’ Homes at Nos. 210 and 216 Windsor avenue were established in 1867 by the will of Mr. Lawson C. Ives, an honored citizen of Hartford. The two Homes are under the management, respectively, of the pastors and prudential committees of the Farmington Avenue Congregational Church and of the Park Congregational Church, who were incorporated for that purpose by the General Assembly of 1867. Each Home contains twelve apartments of three rooms each, and all occupants who are able to do so, pay a monthly rental of $2 for front and $1.50 for back rooms. The inmates do their own work and enjoy a degree of homelike privacy not found in a large institution.
An example of a colonial house with significant later alterations is the Benjamin Webb House, at 388 Old Main Street in Rocky Hill. The house was built before 1750, perhaps in 1720.
The house at 66 Marina Park Circle in Bridgeport is a Shingle-style cottage built in 1892 for Charles B. Read. It was acquired by the University of Bridgeport in 1947 and served as Linden Hall, a women’s dormitory. The above picture shows the side of the house. Charles Barnum Read (1858-1912) was the son of David M. Read and Helen Augusta Barnum, the daughter of P.T. Barnum‘s half-brother, Philo Fairchild Barnum. According to Men of Mark in Connecticut, Volume 4 (1908):
Mr. Read has from his earliest years been closely identified with the social and civic life of Bridgeport, having resided there his entire life. He attended the public schools, and graduated from the high school in 1877, going from there into the mercantile house of his father where he occupied a position in the financial department and became thoroughly acquainted with the details of the business. In 1884 The D. M. Read Company was founded, and he became associated with his father, David M. Read, and his brother, David Farnum Read, in that corporation. […] He is a lover of horses, an automobilst, and greatly enjoys different forms of sport, but perhaps finds his greatest relaxation in golf and squash. He is a member of the vestry of St. John’s Episcopal Church, and is always interested in any movement which may arise for furthering the interests of Bridgeport in social or municipal affairs.
Charles B. Read died on July 4, 1912 at his country home in Greenfield Hill in Fairfield. The water supply to his house was pumped in by a gas engine, 100 feet away. There was a break in the gas pipe and the gardener, John Ruhl, went to investigate. When he did not return, his wife went to find him and shrieked when she found his body. They were both overcome by the gas, as was Read, who suffocated while trying to bring the two bodies out himself.
A descendent of James Riley, who settled in Wethersfield in 1645, Captain David Riley built the house at 3 Riverview Road, just off Old Main Street in Rocky Hill, in 1710. Capt. Riley was a ship captain and so many of his sons and grandsons, who were also mariners, built houses near his that the intersection was once known as Riley’s Corner. In the later nineteenth century, the house was owned by Dr. Rufus Griswold, a physician. Dr. Griswold had earlier been a journalist as well. An editor of the Brooklyn Morning Journal and the New York Empire City, according to one source, “he became a prominent contributor to American medical journals and one of the leading members of the medical profession in Connecticut.” He was also the guiding spirit of the Rocky Hill Lyceum, which sponsored debates and lectures and whose members met at his home. The house has recently been restored.
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