Built around 1790 to 1810, the house at 84 Highland Avenue in Cheshire (pdf #7) is a good example of an early nineteenth century vernacular house with a Federal-style entryway. Known as the Borden House (pdf), the building is now owned by Cheshire Academy.
Happy New Year from Historic Buildings of Connecticut! Hartford’s three tallest buildings are City Place, at 163 meters (535 ft), the Travelers Tower, at 161 meters (527 ft), and Goodwin Square, at 159 meters (522 ft). In the image above are Goodwin Square (left) and City Place (right), both designed by the architectural firm of Skidmore Owings And Merrill. City Place I was built in 1980 and has thirty-eight floors above ground (the adjacent City Place II was built in 1989 and has 18 floors). Most of the building is office space, with retail and restaurant space on the lower floors. Goodwin Square was built in 1989 and has thirty floors. This modern skyscraper connects to and shares a lobby with the Goodwin Hotel, originally built as an apartment building in 1881. The facade of the Goodwin Hotel remains, but the interior was completely replaced in the 1980s. The skyscraper was eventually deemed to have been a bad investment and the hotel closed in 2008. Also visible in the lower left of the above photograph are the tops of the two towers of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch.
In Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895), Mary E. Perkins writes of a property along Washington Street:
Here Joshua Prior builds a house, perhaps about 1766, the time of his marriage to Sarah Hutchins of Killingly, and resides here for a time, but in 1789 he is living on the road near Elderkin’s bridge, and in 1790 he sells this house and land to Gideon Birchard, who also buys in 1795 a small piece of adjoining land (1 1/2 rods frontage) of his son Elisha, who has purchased the property on the north. Gideon Birchard (b. 1735), was the son of John and Jane (Hyde) Birchard and great-grandson of John Birchard, the first town clerk of Norwich. He married in 1757, Eunice Abel, daughter of Capt. Joshua and Jerusha (Frink) Abel, and had eight children. He was a carpenter by trade, and before 1799 moves to Whitestown, New York, and sells, in 1799, his house and land to Jeremiah Griffing. The house is still often called by old residents the Griffing house. In 1858, it is sold by the Griffing heirs to Daniel W. Coit, who sells it in 1871 to William Alfred Jones, who still resides here [William Alfred Jones died in 1900].
As requested, the octagon house built for Henry S. Smith in 1855 is located at the dead end of Bevin Boulevard in East Hampton. Smith was the son of Nathaniel C. Smith, who represented his town six times in the Connecticut General Assembly and served as town clerk for twenty-five successive years. The house, which has a porch and a later ell, has been owned by the Clark family since around 1900.
The Thomas Wells House was built as a saltbox house in 1774 on Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield. When viewed from the front, the house’s chimney is not visible. Capt. Thomas Wells was on the building committee for Wethersfield’s First Congregational Church.
The Chaplin-Apthorp House originally stood on Whitney Avenue, where it was built for James Chaplin by James Hillhouse in 1806. In the 1820s, Hillhouse rented the home to Samuel F. B. Morse. After Morse left, the house was moved in 1827 by James A. Hillhouse to Hillhouse Avenue and a schoolroom was attached for the widowed Mrs. Apthorp, who wanted to open a girls’ school. Apthorp later moved to another house on Hillhouse Avenue in 1838 and the Chaplin-Apthorp House (without its schoolroom) was moved to its current location on Trumbull Street. The house has wings which were added later. It is currently for sale.
Ansonia‘s First Congregational Church was founded in 1850 and a wood church was built in 1852. This burned in 1865, when a group of women were cleaning the church and a fire started in the flue of the furnace. It was replaced by the current Gothic church building on South Cliff Street, built of stone quarried in Seymour. Anson G. Phelps, who founded Ansonia, donated the land and funds to build the church, which has stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
