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

Carroll Building, Norwich (1887)

Lucius W. Carroll was a leading Norwich merchant and businessman who had a store on Water Street. In 1887, as a real estate venture, he constructed a commercial building to be leased to a variety of businesses. Located at the intersection of Main and Water Streets in Norwich, the Carroll Building is also known as the Flat Iron Building, because its floor plan, accommodating the triangular area where it was built, resembled an iron, like that of the famous Flatiron Building in New York, built in 1902. The building‘s display windows are separated by cast iron columns by A. H. Vaughn & Sons, proprietors of the Norwich Iron Foundry. Below are additional images of the building, which show how the Worcester architect, Stephen C. Earle, had to contend with the site’s uneven ground. (more…)

Wheeler Block, Colchester (1872)

The Wheeler Block (also called the Old Town Hall) in Colchester was built as a commercial building by businessman Joshua B. Wheeler in 1872. Wheeler was a Mason and the third floor meeting room was used as a Masonic Lodge through the 1940s. In 1910, at a time when the town’s schools were overcrowded, the building became the Ransom School and was later used for town offices. At present, the building is vacant.

The Jesse Hurd House (1812)

The Jesse Hurd House, built of stone with bold Federal detailing, is the most impressive of the homes built in Middle Haddam (in East Hampton) during its period as a prosperous shipbuilding center. Jesse Hurd (1765-1831) was a prosperous shipbuilder and merchant who played a dominant role in the economic development of Middle Haddam. He built many ships for his partners, the brothers, George and Nathaniel Griswold, who ran the largest merchant shipping house in New York. Hurd owned shares in his vessels and cargoes, building cheaply in Middle Haddam and selling his shares in New York. In 1828, he patented new ship hoisting machinery which he had invented himself. This machinery more easily enabled the scraping and repairing of hulls. Hurd also joined the Griswolds in establishing the New York Screw Dock Company, a dry-dock facility on the East River which utilized the new technology. His impressive house in Middle Haddam, built around 1812, was most likely designed by a master architect/builder, whose name is currently not known. Shipbuilding in Middle Haddam began to decline after Hurd’s death in 1831.

The Jared Redfield House (1792)

The house which serves as a rectory for Christ Church in Guilford was originally built in 1792 for Jared Redfield. It was later occupied by Lorenzo T. Bennett, minister of Christ Church, whose widow later sold the house to the church. The Federal-style house has an off-center doorway and one of the two chimneys is further back than the other.

Clark Greenman House (1841)

Three brothers, George, Clark and Thomas Greenman, founded the the George Greenman & Co. shipyard in Mystic. The brothers soon built three adjacent Greek Revival homes along Greenmanville Avenue. The first was constructed by George in 1839 and this was followed by the houses of Clark and Thomas in 1841 and 1842. The Clark Greenman House has a porch and ornate Victorian decoration, which were added in the 1870s. The house was acquired by Mystic Seaport in 1949, initially serving as the museum’s library and now housing its administrative offices.

Benjamin Trumbull House (1790)

The Benjamin Trumbull House in Colchester was built sometime between 1790 and 1801. According to Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, Vol. IV (1907), by Franklin Bowditch Dexter:

Benjamin Trumbull, the only son of the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull (Yale 1759) who survived infancy, was born in North Haven, Connecticut, on September 24, 1769. He remained in New Haven for two years after graduation, filling the office of College Butler, and pursuing the study of law. On his admission to the bar he returned to the vicinity of the birthplace of his parents, and settled in Colchester, Connecticut, where he had a long career of usefulness. He was sent to the Legislature as a Representative eleven times between 1807 and 1831, and for about twenty years (1818-38) was Judge of the Probate Districts of East Haddam and Colchester.

Benjamin Trumbull’s son, Lyman Trumbull, was born and raised in the house. Lyman Trumbull later became a senator from Illinois and a founder of the Republican Party and an associate of Abraham Lincoln. He helped author the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ending slavery. The house is on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

Windsor Avenue Congregational Church (1871)

Faith Congregational Church, located on Main Street, across from Spring Grove Cemetery, in Hartford’s North End, was originally built as the Windsor Avenue Congregational Church in 1871. The Romanesque Revival and High Victorian Gothic style church was constructed by the Pavillion Congregational Society, organized in 1870. Among the church’s ministers was Charles E. Stowe, pastor from 1883 to 1890. Stowe was the son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who attended church there regularly during her son’s ministry. Since 1953, the church has been the home of Faith Congregational Church, a congregation formed from a merger of Talcott Street Congregational Church and Mother Bethel Methodist Church. Talcott Street Congregational was Hartford’s first black church, founded by the African Religious Society in 1826. Members of the Society had become weary of being assigned seats in the rear of churches and wished to found a church where there would be no assigned seating. The church became an important institution for Hartford’s black community and a center for abolitionist activity. An early minister was James W.C. Pennington, who had escaped slavery in Maryland. Rev. Pennington feared being dragged back to slavery, until John Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother-in-law, purchased his freedom from the estate of his former owner. The African Religious Society also founded Hartford’s first black public school in 1829. Faith Congregational Church is a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

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