Samuel Babcock House (1851)

Samuel Babcock (1788-1851) was a prominent Middletown manufacturer and politician. Originally from Old Saybrook, he was a silversmith there and around 1812 came to Middletown, where he had a shop near the Episcopal Church. In the 1850 census, he was listed as a spectacle maker (eyeglass manufacturer). He was active in various businesses, including banking, granite-quarrying and railroads. About 1851 he erected an Italianate house on Main Street, in front of Mortimer Cemetery. In 1927, the house was moved to 64 Liberty Street, across from the cemetery to make way for commercial development. At its new location, Salvatore Muscatello, the new owner, converted the second floor into a rental apartment and detached the original rear wing to become a separate house at 5 Frazier Avenue.

Mayo S. Purple House (1909)

The Colonial Revival-style house at 142 Main Street in East Hampton has a Queen Anne-style octagonal side tower. The house was built in 1909 or 1910 by Mayo Smith Purple (1860-1942), a prominent businessman in East Hampton. For 35 years he worked for the Bevin Bell Company, eventually becoming the company’s secretary. Around 1914 he assisted in the reorganization of the Gong Bell Manufacturing Company, subsequently serving as that company‘s president for about 28 years. His other positions included president of the Watrous Manufacturing Company, treasurer and manager of the East Hampton Bell Company, and in the mid-1920s treasurer of the Bevins and Wilcox Line Company. Purple also served in the state legislature for a term in 1885-1886 and returned almost a half-century later for four consecutive terms from 1932 to 1940. In 1883 he married Gettine Louise Arnold, who died in 1935.

Col. Daniel Brainerd House (1780)

Col. Daniel Brainerd (1752-1809), a farmer, built the house at 275 Saybrook Road in the Higganum section of Haddam about 1780. His sons inherited the house, but it was their sister, Zeruah Brainerd (1786-1877), who lived in it until her death. In the early twentieth century, the house was occupied by Owen Brainerd (1865-1919), an architect who worked with Carrere and Hastings of New York. He designed St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church (now used as a private residence) on Saybrook Road.

Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Puritan Hotel in Gloucester, Massachusetts

I’m announcing the return of this site’s companion blog, Historic Buildings of Massachusetts! The site has been offline for about a year and hadn’t been updated since the end of 2017, but I have some new material that I’ll be adding from Concord and Sheffield, and a great deal from Gloucester, like the brick hotel, pictured above, which dates to 1810. I’ve also recently posted a library and a church, both in Great Barrington. In addition, I’ve been working on indexes of buildings by street address for each town (like the ones I have for this site), and I have so far completed most of them. Please check out that site (and this one, of course!) for new posts!

Ezra Parker House (1826)

As related in Houses of Essex, Vol. I, by Donald Malcarne (2004, Ivoryton Library Association), page 86, the house at 1 Main Street in Ivoryton (on the edge of Centerbrook) in Essex was built circa 1826 on land acquired in that year by Ezra Parker, just east of where his brother, Daniel Parker, had also purchased land for a homestead in the same year. The land had been part of the holdings of the Williams family, descendants of Charles Williams, the first iron maker in Potapoug Quarter (part of which would become the Town of Essex). Ezra Parker sold the house in 1843 and moved to Michigan. The house later returned to the Parker family when Chauncey Spencer, Jr., married to Ezra’s niece Temperance, bought it in 1864. It then remained in the family until 1910. The current front entrance portico and larger chimney are alterations made since the mid-1950s.