When Samuel Lay laid out New Street (now Pratt Street) in Essex, the first home to be built on the street was that of his son-in-law, George Harrington. Around that time, the Essex ropewalk, in which Harrington was involved, located south of the street, but was soon moved to a new location just to the north. The Harrington House, built around 1815, was later owned by sea captain John Rockwell, who was in the navy during the Civil War.
The Elias Austin House, also known as the Moses Austin House, was built around 1745 and stands on the west side of Main Street in Durham. Elias Austin purchased the lot in 1743 and the property passed to his wife and sons when he died in 1766. One of his sons was Moses Austin, who was born in the house in 1761. Moses Austin later left Durham and reached Texas in the 1820, where the government of Spanish-controlled Mexico granted him land to settle 300 Anglo-American families. Austin died in 1821, but his son, Stephen F. Austin, fulfilled his father’s dream, becoming known as the “Father of Texas.” The Austin House in Durham was sold out of the family in 1783 and has since had many different owners. The building served as Durham’s post office from 1909 to 1935. A front porch supported by pillars once wrapped around three sides of the house, but was removed sometime in the last two decades.
On the corner of West Main and Cedar Streets in New Britain is a large Shingle style house, built around 1900 by Charles W. Lines, who ran a grist mill. Lines later moved to Newington and the house was purchased by John M. Curtin, partner in a furniture dealer and undertakers company. The house was the Curtin Funeral Home until the late 1960s and today is used as office space.
An advertisement in the Official Souvenir and Program of the Dedication of the Soldiers’ monument, New Britain, Conn., September 19, 1900.
The current sign hanging next to Young’s Tavern Apartments in Willimantic explains that the tavern was established in 1776, was later known as Hebard’s Tavern and then as the Nautchaug House, Willimantic’s first hotel. The building also served as Willimantic’s first post office. The oldest parts of the brick building date to the mid-1700s (David Young petitioned for a tavern license in 1755). A Federal-style addition containing a ballroom was constructed by Guy Hebard in 1825. As described in the History of Windham County, Connecticut (1889), edited by Richard M. Bayles:
Guy Hebard had erected a brick house on the south side of the river and opened it for the entertainment of the public. […] Here all public gatherings, Fourth of July celebrations, trainings, dancing schools, balls and other carousals of festivity were held. The old Hebard tavern was known far and wide.
In the 1840s, Gordon Hebard was a Mason and his Lodge, Eastern Star #44, met twice in the Tavern before making a permanent move from Windham Center to the rapidly growing Willimantic. Later in the nineteenth century, the hotel was known as the Natchaug House and an item in the Willimantic Chronicle from Wednesday, August 16, 1882, indicated that “the old Natchaug house” was “marked for destruction,” because “D.E. Potter and E.S. Boss have purchased it and will erect on the site a tenement block.” Somehow the building survived this threat, but it did become an apartment building and and during the following century it severely deteriorated. Starting in 1984, the building was restored by author David Morse and continues today as an apartment building.
The site on Chapel Street in New Haven which is now the home of the Union League Cafe has a notable history and has seen many changes over the years. It the eighteenth century, it was the site of Roger Sherman‘s house. Sherman, who served as New Haven’s first mayor and as representative and senator in Congress, was the only person to sign all four of the great state papers of the United States: the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. In 1860, an Italianate house was built here designed by Henry Austin for Gaius Fenn Warner, head of G. F. Warner & Co., manufacturers of malleable iron. Peter Carll moved to the house in 1874 and in 1880 built an opera theatre, later called the Hyperion Theater, at the back of the house. This theater was demolished in 1998, having been vacant for more than two decades. During the demolition, a second-floor projection booth in the building collapsed, raining down slabs of concrete, bricks and steel and spreading a thick cloud of smoke over Chapel Street. The house itself served as the home of the Union League Club of New Haven, a private civic and social club, from the 1880s to the 1940s. In 1902, the current Beaux Arts addition, designed by New Haven architect Richard Williams, was built on the front of the building, creating a striking facade on Chapel Street. Although vacant for a time, the structure, known today as the Sherman Building, is now home to the Union League Cafe, a French restaurant. Adjacent to the building is Sherman’s Alley, originally a grassy area, which is now home to retail outlets.
The Methodist Episcopal Church in Durham was organized in 1815, with the South District School House being used for worship. Membership soon dwindled after conflicts within the church, but in 1830, according to William Chauncey Fowler’s History of Durham (1866):
Dr. Chauncey Andrews being in the practice of medicine in the town, secured a place for holding Methodist meetings, and at his own expense fitted up a room in the Academy on the Green and hired a Local Preacher from Middletown by the name of Isham, to preach six Sabbaths, incurring the responsibility of paying him without any orders from the Society or Class. From that time forward Methodist meetings were held regularly on the Sabbath, and the students and Professors from the Wesleyan University at Middletown, supplied the pulpit.
Membership now increased quickly until a Methodist church building was constructed on Main Street in 1836. Durham Methodists joined with Congregationalists in 1941 to form the United Churches of Durham, using the North Congregational Church building for their united worship. The old Greek Revival-style Methodist church then became a Grange Hall and is now used as office space (see also: pdf).
The Episcopal parish in Cheshire was formed in 1751, under the leadership of Rev. Ichabod Camp, an Anglican priest born in Durham, who later traveled to the west. The first Episcopal church was built in 1760, replaced by a new one ten years later. According to Old Historic Homes of Cheshire (1895), compiled by Edwin R. Brown, “This second church building was low between joints. In 1795 a very high steeple was added—much out of proportion to the building. It is stated that when the Bishop of the Diocese first saw this high steeple, he remarked: ‘They had better now build a church for the steeple.'” The oldest part of the current St. Peter’s Church, the Nave, was built in 1840 and the hipped-roofed front section was added to it in 1889.