Happy Thanksgiving!According to the History of New Haven County, Vol. I (1892), by John L. Rockey, in 1888 Wallingford’s Fire Department “had 64 men, exclusive of its three officers, belonging to the Wallingford Hose Company, No. 1; the Wallace Hose Company, No. 2, with a house on the Plains; and the Simpson Hook and Ladder Company, No. 1.” In 1895, a new Wallace Hose House was erected at 9 South Cherry Street, at the corner of Quinnipiac Street, on land donated by Robert Wallace (1815-1892), a prominent silverware manufacturer. Today the building is used as office space.
The house at 638 Main Street in Portland was most likely built sometime between c. 1855-1859. It was originally the home of Samuel Buckingham, a merchant (possibly the Samuel Buckingham who was born in 1808 and died in 1870). The former Buckingham Store, also built in the 1850s and now home to the Gildersleeve Sprit Shop, is located next door at 642-644 Main Street. Next door to that, at the corner of Indian Hill Avenue, is the former Gildersleeve Store, 646 Main Street, built in 1855.
I’ve just completed an index (by address) for the 16 buildings I’ve featured on this site that are in the Town of Trumbull. The most recent of these buildings is featured in today’s post: the Trumbull Town Hall. I’ve previously featured the Helen Plumb Building in Trumbull, which served as town hall from 1883 to 1957. In that year, the new Town Hall, pictured above, opened at 5866 Main Street. Previously this had been the site of the Aaron Sherwood Homestead, built in 1880. The house was later the home of Dr. Clarence Atkins, a dentist, and was then used as a convalescent home called the Hillcrest Hygienic Lodge.
At 80 Central Avenue in East Hartford is a Queen Anne-style house. Its original facade now lies behind the later additions of a two-story entry porch and an octagonal bay and porch. The house was erected in 1891 on a property that R.W. Roberts, who owned several lots on Central Avenue, had sold to Daniel W. Green in 1889. Green, born in 1857 and originally from Sumner, Oxford County, Maine, was a contractor and builder. According to Vol. I of the Commemorative Biographical Record of Hartford County, Connecticut (1901):
Daniel W. Green was educated in the common schools of his native district, also at the South Paris (Maine) High School, and after leaving school, at the age of sixteen years, on account of weakened eyes brought about by typhoid fever, he worked in various mills until about 1882, when he went to Crescent City, Putnam Co., Fla. There he learned the carpenter’s trade, worked there five years, and then returned to Connecticut, worked one year for Cheney Brothers, in Manchester, next moved to East Hartford worked for W. J. Driggs, contractor and builder, for nine years, and in 1896 began contracting and building on his own account, in which he has met with success—a success due to his pains-taking endeavor to please his patrons. On Sept. 19, 1883, Mr. Green married Miss Emma F. Wetherell, a native of South Manchester, born April 27, 1861 [. . . .]
To the marriage of Daniel W. Green and wife have been born two children: Ernest Carlton, in Crescent City, Fla., Sept. 8, 1886, and Marian Lucille, Oct. 28, 1888, in South Manchester. Mr. Green and his family attend the Congregational Church, of which Mrs. Green has long been a conscientious member. In politics Mr. Green is inclined to Democracy, but does not always cast his vote for that party; fraternally he is a member of Wadsworth Council, No. 39, O.U.A.M., of Manchester. Through his industry, skill, and industrious habits, Mr. Green has gained a comfortable home, which he built in 1891, on a lot purchased from Watson Roberts. He is a genial, whole-souled gentleman, and he and his wife, with their two bright children, form a happy family, greatly respected by all who know them.
I have just completed a building index (by address) for the buildings on this site that are in the Town of Prospect. The most recent entry for Prospect is today’s building, the former Prospect Public Library, which is constructed of fieldstone and was erected in 1905. Earlier private circulating libraries (the Cheshire Mountain Library and the Oxford Circulating Library) had existed in the community even before the incorporation of Prospect as a town in 1827. The Library Association was organized in 1886 and its books were first located at the home of its first librarian, Sarah Tallmadge, and then in the vestry of the Congregational Church. Efforts for the construction of a free public library led to the erection of the 1905 building, designed by F. E. Walters of Waterbury. The principle donors for the library were the Tuttle family of Naugatuck, descendants of Eben Clark Tuttle (1806-1873) who had begun manufacturing hoes in Prospect before moving to Naugatuck in 1851. The family also funded landscaping of the grounds around the building on Prospect Green. A new library building was erected in 1991 on the former site of the Petrauskas farm at 17 Center Street. The former library, located at 30 Center Street, was renamed the Meeting Place and is used for community purposes.
The Greek Revival house at 10 Main Street in Bethel was probably built by Frederick Shepard (1815-1894), who came from a family of hatters and was also a lawyer. He used the house as his office. The 1879 Bird’s Eye View of Bethel shows a now-lost gable-roofed structure in front of the house. Around that time, Shepard served as town clerk and was an enumerator for the 1880 census.
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