At 228 Ellsworth Street, in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport, is an Italianate house with an ornate veranda and wide projecting eaves. It was built in 1853 by carpenter and housewright Oliver Burr as his own residence. After 1860, the house was home to two generations of the Burroughs family.
The house at 118 Washington Street in Norwich was built in 1809 by John Vernet. Born in France, the aristocratic Vernet had fled the French Revolution and settled first in Martinique and later in Norwich. In 1802, he married Ann Brown, daughter of tavern-keeper Jesse Brown. Vernet built an expensive and elegant house on property that had been owned by his father-in-law, but he quickly faced financial difficulties. Vernet sold the house in 1811 or 1812 and moved with his family to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The house was bought by Benjamin Lee of Cambridge, whose family owned it for sixty years. According to tradition, the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad and had a tunnel to the river, but this has not been confirmed by physical evidence. In 1873, the house was sold to Albert P. Sturtevant, a manufacturer, and was home to his son, Charles P. Sturtevent. In 1920, the house became the Rectory of Christ Episcopal Church, but today it is again a private residence.
Author Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) and her husband, Calvin Stowe (1802-1886), had twin daughters named Harriet (Hattie) Beecher (1836-1907) and Eliza Tyler (1836-1912) Stowe. Neither twin married, but they lived with their parents, traveling with their mother and managing the family’s households in Hartford and in Mandarin, Florida. After their mother’s death in 1896, the twins settled in Simsbury, where their brother, Charles E. Stowe, was the minister at the First Church of Christ. According to the new Images of America series book on Simsbury, their former house at 965 Hopmeadow Street was provided for them by their brother when he became minister in 1891. They wouldn’t have moved there until their mother died, so perhaps the house was built in 1891? Today, the house is used for offices.
Update 4/5/12: There’s a new article about the Stowe family’s connections with Simsbury. Check it out!
In 1796, Daniel Bennett of Weston built the house in Barkhamsted that would later be called Squire’s Tavern. From 1801 to 1821, it was operated as a tavern by Saul Upson, who then sold it to Bela Squire. The property had a farm, tavern, and blacksmith’s shop. The house had other owners after 1871, including Johann Ullmann, a German immigrant farmer. In 1929, the former Tavern was donated to the state and housed park rangers as part of People’s State Forest. By the 1990s, the building was unoccupied. It has since been restored and opened as a museum by the Barkhamsted Historical Society.
Incorporated in 1881, the First National Bank in Wallingford was originally located in an 1882 Renaissance Revival building at 35 South Main Street. In 1921, the bank moved to a new Beaux-Arts building at 9 North Main Street. This building was bought by the town in 1960 and was the location of the town’s electric division payment office and tax collector’s office until 1989. It has since housed a drug store, bookstore and now a restaurant.
Another house in West Hartford’s West Hill Historic District is the house built in 1920 for Eugene L. Cushman. Located at 14 West Hill, it was designed by Cortland F. Luce in the Tudor Revival style. As reported in The Iron Age, Vol. 104, No. 26, December 25, 1919:
Eugene L. Cushman died at his home in West Hartford, Conn., Dec. 18, aged 65 years. Mr. Cushman was chairman of the board of directors of the Cushman Chuck Co., Hartford, Conn., having formerly been president of that organization.
Could this be the father of the house’s first occupant, or did Cushman die before it was completed?
Center Congregational Church, at 155 Main Street in Torrington, was originally known as the Third Congregational Church of Torrington. It was established in what was then known as Wolcottville, a village that later became the center of Torrington. As related in The Torrington Register Souvenir Edition. An Illustrated and Descriptive Exposition of Torrington, Connecticut, 1897:
The Third Congregational Church is so named, not as many strangers suppose because there are two others in the borough, but because it is the third Congregational church formed in the town, the one in West Torrington being the oldest and the one in Torringford being the next in age. The Torringford church was formed because of the deep swamp which its people had to traverse to get to the First Church. The third came into being in later times because the petitioners alleged that they must either ascend a hill of 630 feet to go to Torringford, or one-half as high to go to the First Church. The building of the First Church was then up on the hills toward Goshen. A debt of gratitude is due to Capt. Uri Taylor, who gave the land and built thereon a Congregational meeting-house before the church was organized. Later on, he added to his gift a parsonage and lot. The ecclesiastical society was formed Dec. 3, 1829, and the Church was organized July 11, 1832, with twenty-nine members. This was at a time when the population of the village numbered about 500. The meeting-house built in 1828 was remodeled in 1844, by running a floor under the gallery. The present building of stone was erected in 1866[-1867] at the cost of great sacrifice on the part of the members. The Chapel was built in 1880.
The church was expanded to its present size in 1900 and was renamed Center Congregational Church. The church was burned by arsonists in January 1979. The interior was destroyed, but the granite walls survived. The church was restored and reopened in October 1980.
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