Avery Point Lighthouse (1943)

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The last of Connecticut’s active lighthouses to be built was the Avery Point Light, which today is located on the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus. The lighthouse was built in 1943 as a memorial to all other lighthouses and lighthouse keepers. It was not lit until 1944, owing to fears of enemy invasion by sea during World War II. At time it was built, the property was used as a Coast Guard training facility and the light remained an active aid to navigation until the Coast Guard moved to a new location in 1967. Left abandoned, there were concerns that the light would be torn down, especially after UCONN declared it a safety hazard in 1997. In response, the Avery Point Lighthouse Society was formed to restore and relight the tower. In 2001, the old wooden lantern was removed, to be replaced by a newly crafted replica, lowered into place in 2005. Part of the restoration involved the building of a memorial brick walkway, with inscribed bricks that had been sold to raise donations for the restoration. Work on the tower itself was begun in 2003 and the official relighting and rededication ceremonies took place in 2006. There is a webcam view of Avery Point.

Branford House (1903)

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Morton Freeman Plant, son of the railroad and steamboat magnate Henry Bradley Plant, was a very wealthy businessman who was also known to live a playboy lifestyle He built the mansion known as Branford House on Avery Point in Groton. Instead of building his expensive summer home in Newport, Plant, who had a great interest in agriculture, chose the less crowded Groton, where there was greater space to build extensive gardens, greenhouses and farms. The 31-room Tudor Revival mansion was built in 1903 and named Branford House, after the town where Plant had been born. It was designed by Plant’s wife, Nellie, with English architect Robert W. Gibson carrying out her plans. The granite used in the construction was quarried from the surrounding grounds. After Plant died in 1918, the estate passed to his son and then his daughter-in-law. The house was eventually sold at auction in 1939 and later became the property of the United States Coast Guard, with the house being used as offices and quarters for the families of the station’s commanding and executive officers. Much of the grounds were bulldozed during this period and the adjacent Avery Point Lighthouse was built in 1942. In the 1960s, the Coast Guard station moved and the land reverted to the State. It was then given to the University of Connecticut and is now UCONN’s Avery Point branch campus. The mansion was refurbished in 2001 and is available for rental.

Amos Morris Hathaway House (1889)

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The Amos Morris Hathaway House, at 191 Prospect Street in Willimantic, is a Queen Anne house built in 1889. Hathaway was an executive with the Willimantic Linen Company, which later became American Thread Company. In 1957, Hathaway’s surviving daughters, Kate and Marion, deeded the house to the city to become a children’s library: the Taylor-Hathaway Memorial Library. It was named in honor of Dr. Daniel Taylor, Kate’s late husband, and her brother Edgar, who had been an office manager at American Thread. Dr. Taylor was a dentist and expert on telescopes who practiced in New York City and Willimantic and who also owned a home in Noank. The house served as a library for ten years, when the children’s collection was moved to the new library on Main Street.

John A. Conant House (1894)

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Located on the steepest part of Chestnut Street in Willimantic, the John A. Conant House has a basement at street level. John Ashbel Conant, who had the house built in 1894, was superintendent of the Holland Silk Company. The Holland brothers had built a steam powered mill on Valley Street in 1865 and Conant became their overseer the following year. Holland Silk Co. became a leading manufacturer of dress silk thread and, by the time Conant built his house, he had become the company’s managing director, a position he held until he retired in 1906. Conant was also involved in the temperance movement and at the American Prohibition National Convention of 1884 in Chicago, he was nominated as the Prohibitionists candidate for vice-president.

Billings & Spencer Company (1893)

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Charles Billings and Christopher Spencer were former employees at the Colt Armory who started their own drop-forging shop in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood in 1872. The Billings & Spencer Company became an important manufacturer of tools. The 1893 Billings & Spencer Company building, at the corner of Russ and Lawrence Streets in Hartford, features a distinctive Romanesque Revival office tower. The building was adapted in the 1980s for use as an apartment building, which is owned by the Melville Charitable Trust.