The house at 404 Main Street in Old Saybrook has been dated back to 1697 or even 1687. By the mid-eighteenth century, the house was owned by John Shipman. This Cape-style house has been altered over the years, but still has four fireplaces and a beehive oven in the kitchen.
As described in History of the town of Litchfield, Connecticut (1845), by George C. Woodruff:
The members of the Church of England in this town, associated together for public worship about the year 1746, and it appears from their records that the Episcopal Society “was organized according to law, on the 26th of October, A, D. 1784.” Their first Church was erected nearly opposite the carriage manufactory of Mr. William Lord, about one mile westerly from the Court House. Their Church in the village was completed in the year 1812.
As further related in Historic Litchfield, 1721-1907 (1907), by Alice T. Bulkeley:
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church was dedicated in 1851 and is the third edifice, the first being built in 1749 about a mile west of the courthouse. The present church had a spire above the tower which was blown down in a storm a few years ago.
The current church building was erected in 1919-1921. In The Litchfield Book of Days (1900) is the following story about the earliest of these four church buildings:
When General Washington passed through Litchfield in the Revolutionary War, the soldiers, to evince their attachment to him, threw a shower of stones at the windows of the Episcopal Church. He reproved them, saying: “I am a Churchman, and wish not to see the church dishonored and desolated in this manner.”
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.
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