Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

The John C. Anderson House (1882)

Although by 1882 the Second Empire was no longer in fashion, the wealthy New Yorker John C. Anderson built an extravagant home in the style that year on Orange Street in New Haven. He only occupied the impressive mansion for a few years, complaining as he left of high taxes. Anderson was the son of the prominent New York tobacconist, John Anderson, who had died the year before his son built his own retirement home in New Haven. The elder John Anderson had an interesting career. In 1841, he was questioned in a sensational murder case, after Mary Rogers, known as the “Beautiful Cigar Girl,” who worked for Anderson in his tobacco shop, was found dead. The murder inspired the Edgar Allen Poe story, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” In later life, Anderson would talk to spirits, including the ghosts of Mary Rogers and of his dead son. He had supported Garibaldi, who liberated Italy, and would speak to the Italian hero’s ghost (although Garibaldi was alive at the time!). Later, the John C. Anderson House became St. Mary’s Academy High School, run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary.

Willard Homestead (1732)

The homestead of the Willard family in Newington is at 372 Willard Avenue. Built in 1732, it is one of the oldest houses in Newington and has its original double door. In the twentieth century, when the house was home to the First Selectman, James C. Gilbert (served 1922 to 1939), it operated as the town office, with Gilbert conducting town business in what was known as the Borning Room!

Hicks-Stearns Family Museum (1788)

This Thanksgiving we focus on a house that is now a family museum. The Hicks-Stearns Family Museum, established in 1980, is a Victorian era home, located on Tolland Green. The earliest parts of the house date to the eighteenth century, sometime before 1788, when then owner Benoni Shepard established a tavern in the home known as Shepard’s Tavern at the Sign of the Yellow Ball. Shepard was also a deacon of the Congregational Church and served as postmaster, with a post office in his home, from 1795 to 1807. The house was occupied by the Hicks family from 1845 into the the 1970s. The family enlarged and embellished the house with many Victorian-era architectural features in the 1870s and 1880s. Charles R. Hicks was a leading merchant in Providence and New York, who retired to Tolland. He married Maria Amelia Stearns Their son, Ratcliffe Hicks, was president of the Canfield Rubber Works of Bridgeport and a member of the state legislature. The Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture at UCONN is also named for him.

Lafayette Gladding House (1880)

The Italianate-style home of Lafayette Gladding, a Berlin farmer, was built around 1880 on Worthington Ridge. Later owners of the house included William H. Webster, a prominent landowner, and Henry L. Porter, a merchant.

The Deacon Chauncey Wells House (1770)

The Deacon Chauncey Wells House, at 491 Wells Road in Wethersfield, was built in 1770. According to a traditional story, the east half of the house was built first, then the second half later on. These were initially two separate residences, possibly built for two brothers. The house was sold out of this branch of the Wells family in 1882.

Henry Laurens Kellogg House (1875)

Henry Laurens Kellogg of Newington gained wealth running a satinet factory, which made uniform fabric during the Civil War. Admiring the architecture he saw while visiting Italy, Kellogg returned home and built his house in 1875 in the style of an Italian villa. The factory, which later burned down, stood between his house and Piper Brook. Once hidden by a row of poplar trees in front, the Kellogg House has a commanding presence on Willard Avenue where Stoddard Avenue ends. The house is now subdivided into condominium units.

Union Baptist Church, Hartford (1871)

Union Baptist Church is one of the oldest black congregations in Hartford. In 1889, there was a split in church’s membership and, although both groups wished to retain the name of Union Baptist Church, one group had already claimed a charter before the other group arrived, so the latter group established itself as Shiloh Baptist Church. The English Gothic building which is today Union Baptist Church, at 1921 Main Street in the city’s North End, was built in 1871 and was originally the Memorial Church of St. Thomas, an Episcopal church built in honor of Bishop Thomas Church Brownell, the founder of Trinity College. By the 1920s, St. Thomas Church was facing diminishing attendance. St. Monica’s, a black Episcopal congregation, which had been meeting in a dilapidated church formerly used by Shiloh Baptist Church, was allowed to use the Parish Hall of St. Thomas Church. Eventually, in 1925, the church was offered to Union Baptist Church and St. Monica’s congregation moved to a smaller church, on Mather Street, which Union Baptist had erected in 1908 and was now vacating.

Leaders and members of Union Baptist Church made important contributions to the early civil rights movement: the Reverend John C. Jackson, who who became pastor in 1922, worked to open employment opportunities for African Americans and in 1943 helped establish the Connecticut Inter-Racial Commission, now the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. C. Edythe Taylor, a member of the church, was the first African American teacher in the Hartford public school system. The Union Baptist Church is on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. (more…)