Harwinton Congregational Church (1952)

Harwinton’s first Congregational meeting house was constructed in the early 1740s, to the south of where the current Congregational Church now stands. Surplus materials from its construction were later used to build the town’s first schoolhouse. Put to municipal use for thirty years after a new church was built in 1808, the old structure became dilapidated and was eventually torn down. The 1808 church, built in the Federal style, continued in use until it burned, after being struck by lightning, in 1949. Groundbreaking ceremonies for a new church occurred the following year and the building opened for worship in 1952. Due to a shortage of funds, the new church remained without a steeple for ten years, until 1962, when the Harwinton Congregational Church acquired the steeple of the Methodist Church in Torrington, which was being torn down at the time.

Joseph Dwight Chaffee House (1889)

In 1889, Joseph Dwight Chaffee bought what was considered to be the most desirable lot in Willimantic and built an impressive Queen Anne house on the property. As stated in The Chaffee Genealogy (1909), Joseph Dwight Chaffee

was born in Mansfield, Conn., August 9, 1846, and married there, September 12, 1867, Martha W., daughter of George P. Armstrong of that place. Mr. Chaffee has served in the Connecticut Legislature as Representative and also as Senator from the Twenty-Fourth District. He has been associated with his father in the business of manufacture of silk under the firm name of O. S. Chaffee & Son, later called the Natchaug Silk Company of Willimantic, Conn. In 1883 he lived in Mansfield, and in 1894 in Willimantic.

He was known as Colonel Chaffee, after serving on Governor Phineas Lounsbury‘s staff from 1887 until 1889. In 1895, a financial scandal led to the liquidation of the Natchaug Silk Company and the arrest and trial of J. D. Chaffee for fraud (the company had been capitalized in a fraudulent manner by the First National Bank of Willimantic, a fact discovered when the bank’s cashier committed suicide and the bank was investigated). Chaffee later operated, with his son, another manufacturing company, known for its Natchaug Silk Braided Fish Lines. He later llived in the factory’s basement, after the company closed in 1927, until his death in 1938 at the age of 92. His former house on Summit Street in Willimantic was restored in the late-1990s.

First National Bank, Hartford (1899)

The State House Square building complex, located just north of the Old State House in Hartford, was completed in 1985. It is the latest structure to occupy a block of state street which has had a number of interesting buildings over the years. Near the end of the nineteenth century, the First National Bank occupied the right end of a commercial block that also included the United States Hotel. Adjacent on the east was the 1834 Greek Revival building of the Hartford National Bank. From 1896 to 1899, the First National Bank moved to a temporary location on Main Street while its new building was constructed. Designed by Ernest Flagg and completed in 1899, the Beaux Arts-style Fist National Bank building had a fireproof construction consisting of steel structural columns and cinder-covered brick vaults under the floors. The facade of the building has survived to become part of State House Square.

Tunxis Hose Fire House (1893)

In 1893, the citizens of Unionville petitioned the state legislature to create a fire district for their community. The founding of the Unionville Fire District led to the creation of the Tunxis Hose Company and the construction of a Queen Anne-style fire house, begun in 1893 and completed in the following year. Located at the corner of Lovely Street and Farmington Avenue in Unionville, the Tunxis Hose Fire House was in use until a new building was constructed in 1960-1961. The old building, next used by the Town of Farmington as a storage facility for its files, has recently been restored with assistance from architect Tim Eagles.

The James E. English House (1845)

Designed by Henry Austin, the James E. English House was built in 1845 on Wooster Square in New Haven. James Edward English, who began as a builder, later became a wealthy lumber dealer and a politician, serving in the US Congress and then as Governor of Connecticut. Austin designed for English an Italianate house with unusual columns on the front porch. In 1876, the house was raised a full story, leading to its present, elongated appearance. Today the house is the Maresca & Sons Funeral Home.

The Thaddeus Burr Homestead (1790)

The Burr Homestead, on the Old Post Road in Fairfield, is a mansion built in 1790 by Thaddeus Burr (pdf) a wealthy landowner and uncle of Aaron Burr. It replaced the original Burr Mansion, built in 1732, which stood on the same site. In that earlier house, in 1775, Burr‘s friend John Hancock had married Dorothy Quincy, whose father was also an old friend of Thaddeus Burr. The old mansion was burned in the British raid on Fairfield in 1779, in spite of the pleas of Burr’s wife, Eunice, who even had the silver buckles stolen from her shoes by British soldiers. According to A general history of the Burr family in America (1878), by Charles Burr Todd:

A few weeks after the burning, Gov. Hancock paid his old friend a visit, and while they were surveying the ruins, he remarked to Mr. Burr that he must rebuild, and offered to furnish the glass needed, provided he would build a house precisely like his own in Boston—not an inconsiderable gift, as all who have seen the Governor’s unique mansion, fronting on Boston Common, must admit. Mr. Burr accepted the offer, and built a house the exact counterpart of Mr. Hancock’s. The site of the mansion burned in 1779 is now occupied by the residence of Wm. Jones, Esq.

Gen. Gershom Burr inherited the new house, built by architect-builder Daniel Dimon, from his uncle Thaddeus, who died in 1801. The next owner, Obadiah W. Jones, remodeled and enlarged the mansion in the 1840s. As described in An Historic Mansion, Being an Account of the Thaddeus Burr Homestead, Fairfield, Connecticut, 1654-1915 (1915), by Frank S. Child, the alterations included, “taking out the dormer windows and lifting the roof, taking away the porch and building the broad veranda with its lofty massive fluted columns.” The mansion had other owners over the years. Now owned by the Town of Fairfield and managed by the Fairfield Museum and History Center, the Burr Homestead has restored gardens and the house can be rented for events.

Arad Welton House (1850)

The Arad Welton House, at 238 West Main Street in Cheshire, is a Greek Revival house with large wings extending on each side. The front porch was added around 1900. Arad W. Welton was a manufacturer and first president of the Cheshire Manufacturing Company, established in 1850, which produced combs, brass buttons and other stamped goods. In 1901, the company combined with the Ball and Socket Fastener Co. of Portsmouth N.H. and became the Ball and Socket Manufacturing Co., which focused on buttons.