Since 1935, the house at 135 North Broad Street in Milford has been home to Smith Funeral Home, founded in 1886 by George J. Smith. The wing on the west side is the earliest section of the house. The building was much expanded in 1853-1855 by John Fowler as an Italianate villa. Simon Lake bought the house in 1900 and further expanded it, building a laboratory behind it. Simon Lake was a mechanical engineer and naval architect who is credited with inventing the modern submarine.
The Italian villa-style house at 44 South Street in Litchfield was built by George M. Woodruff in 1855. Like his father, George C. Woodruff (1805-1885), who lived next door at 58 South Street, George M. Woodruff was a lawyer and politician, holding various town and state offices.
The house at 58 South Street in Litchfield was built in 1829 by Elihu Harrison (1797-1855), who ran a general store in the center of town from 1825 to 1836. The house was later owned by George C. Woodruff, a lawyer and a U.S. Representative (1861-1863). His son, George M. Woodruff, built a house next door in 1855. His grandson, James P. Woodruff, later lived in the 1829 house.
Charles Phelps Williams (1804-1879) was a wealthy shipowner and businessman in Stonington. A ship master by 1825, he was soon involved in seal fishery and, when the sealing industry declined, he turned to whaling. According to Hurd’s History of New London County (1882), Charles P. Williams
was one of the largest individual ship-owners engaged in that important pursuit. With its decadence he withdrew from active commercial life, and was one of the first corporators under the State laws of the Ocean Bank of Stonington, of which he was elected president, and whose immediate and continued prosperity was largely due to his admirable management. In 1856 he went to Europe with his family, and resigned the presidency, but on his return he was elected first director, a position which he retained in the reorganization of the bank as the First National.
Mr. Williams took an active part in the building of the Providence and Stonington Railroad, and was for many years president of that corporation.
His keen business foresight had at an early period in the development of the West convinced him of its importance and future greatness, and he became largely interested there. The management of his accumulating property occupied the later years of his life, and he withdrew entirely from active business. I In 1878 the severe strain of a life of intense mental activity culminated in failing health, and on Oct. 28, 1879, he died of a rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain. […]
One of the most marked features of his personal character was the thorough simplicity of his life. He never sought office of any kind. A man of distinguished and commanding presence, of most courteous and polished manners, he was averse to all ostentation and avoided public life. His integrity was spotless, and in the management of all the vast interests which he controlled, with the innumerable attendant possibilities of error, his reputation stood always above reproach. A man of generous impulse, his charities were as unostentatious as his life, and in his death the poor lost a true and a liberal friend, and the State an upright and valued citizen.
In 1840, his homestead on Water Street was moved to 39 Main Street, where it was remodeled in the Greek Revival style and enlarged with two side wings.
The brick Greek Revival style house at 105 North Washington Street in Plainville was built about 1853 by George W. Eaton. Starting out as a farmer, Eaton purchased the gristmill of Hiram Hills, eventually developing it into a commercial grain and feed mill in the 1870s. The business was continued by his sons under the name Eaton Brothers. The house has had a porch since the later nineteenth century.
The first meeting house of the Congregational Church of Canaan Parish was built in 1732-1733 in New Canaan on Church Hill (known as God’s Acre because of the burying ground one located on the hill, until the graves were later moved elsewhere). A second, larger meeting house was built in 1750-1752. Canaan Parish was incorporated as the Town of New Canaan in 1801. After the second church building was damaged by a lightning strike, it was replaced by the current church, completed in 1843. The church was incorporated as the Congregational Church of New Canaan in 1902.
The Post Building, at 49 Cannon Street in Bridgeport, was built in 1891-1892 as the office of the Bridgeport Evening Post newspaper. The building was expanded 1901 to house both the Post and the Morning Telegram-Union.
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