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

Selden Brewer House (1833)

Selden Brewer was a successful tobacco grower in East Hartford, who built his impressive house between 1827 and 1833. A tradition about the house states that Selden’s father, Samuel Brewer, transported the bricks used in the house‘s construction from Wethersfield over the frozen Connecticut River in 1827. The house originally stood on Main Street, on the northern end of the Brewer Tobacco Plantation, but in the 1980s, through the efforts of the Historical Society of East Hartford, it was moved to its current location at the intersection of Main and Naubuc Streets. The Historical Society’s offices are on the second floor and the rooms on the first floor can be rented for meetings and small banquets. [It’s interesting to compare images of some of the rooms as they appear today compared with historical photos taken of the furnished rooms over sixty years ago].

Benjamin C. Phelps House (1852)

East Hartford has an octagon house on Naubuc Avenue. According to one source, it was built in 1852 for Rev. Benjamin C. Phelps, the minister at Hockanum Methodist Church. According to another source, the house was built in 1858 for the Curtis family and was owned, after 1867, by the Hollister family.

Daniel R. Williams House (1834)

Daniel R. Williams was a marine entrepreneur who sold seine fishing nets out of the basement of his house, on Gravel Street in Mystic. The house was built in 1834 and an outbuilding on the property was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Ebenezer Hopson House (1764)

On Boston Street in Guilford is a 1764 gambrel-roofed house built by Ebenezer Hopson. In 1789, Rev. Jesse Lee preached the the first Methodist sermon in Guilford in the Hopson House. The home’s Greek Revival doorway was added around 1841.

The Simon Hazelton House (1785)

At the intersection of Walkley, Hayden Hill, and Saybrook Roads in Haddam is a Georgian-style house, originally built in 1785, but with significant Victorian era alterations. These include a central gable and two dormer windows on the front facade, a porch wrapping around three sides of the house, and enlarged windows. The house was built by Simon Hazelton, Sr., who had been a captain in the Revolutionary War. In the twentieth century, the house was converted to become a rest home known as the Walkley Hill Home.

Smith-Dickinson House (1842)

In 1841-1842, Charles Whitmore Smith, a merchant, built a Greek Revival house on North Street in Essex. In 1888, the house was purchased by Edward E. Dickinson, whose E.E. Dickinson Company dominated the nation’s production of witch hazel. Dickinson wintered in Florida, where the wealthy community of Palm Beach was being developed at the time. In 1927, Dickinson enlarged and remodeled his house in Essex to resemble Whitehall, Henry Flagler’s famous mansion in Palm Beach.

Chester Meeting House (1793)

The old colony of Saybrook covered a geographic area which was later subdivided into many different towns. As was common in the colonial era, these divisions were centered on the establishment of separate church congregations. The original First Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook was founded in what is now Old Saybrook in 1646. Second and Third Societies were established at Centerbrook (now in the town of Essex) in 1725 and at Westbrook in 1726. The Fourth Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook was established in what is now the town of Chester in 1742. The society’s second meeting house was constructed in 1793-1795 and served the congregation until a new church was built (the United Church of Chester now worships in its fourth church building). The old meeting house was then purchased by the town of Chester in 1847 and was used as the Town Hall until 1960, when meetings were moved to a newly constructed elementary school. In addition to town meetings, the building also hosted theatrical productions and other events, facilitated by its remodeling as a theater space in 1876. P.T. Barnum’s star, Tom Thumb, made a notable appearance there and numerous recitals, dances and other events took place over the years. In 1972, the Chester Historical Society, which held its meetings in the building, undertook its restoration. Used again for a variety of meetings and performances, the Chester Meeting House had a new addition constructed in 1985.