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

Collins Company Office (1868)

The Collins Axe Company was started in South Canton (which later came to be known as Collinsville) in 1826. The company constructed a village to house and provide services to the workers and their original office building, built in 1830 on Front Street, included a school and space for religious services. In 1867, this structure was moved to the corner of River and North Street and divided into two units for employee housing. The new office building, constructed to replace the old one in 1868, also contained a post office, library, a third-floor hall with a stage, and space for the local DAR to meet. These rooms were eventually used for office space as the company expanded. The building is now used for various businesses, but the snow guards along the roof are still in the shape of the Collins Company trademark of crown, arm, and hammer.

Ezra Adams House (1795)

At the corner where West Simsbury Road intersects with Cherry Brook Road in Canton stands the house (3 West Simsbury Road) built by Ezra Adams in 1795 (or perhaps as early as 1771). Adams had earlier lived on a tract across the road. The house has nails which were made in the Old Newgate Prison.

Denison Homestead (1717)

The Denison Homestead is the third successive house to be built on the land granted to Captain George Denison in 1654 in the Town of Stonington‘s half of Mystic (which is a census-designated place). Its immediate predecessor burned in a fire in 1717, the night before George Denison‘s grandson, known as “George the Builder,” was married. This grandson then built the current house just west of the original home, using charred timbers from the old house. The house, which became known as Pequotsepos Manor, continued to be the home of generations of the Denison family. In 1930, Ann Borodell Denison Gates created the Denison Society and after her death, in 1941, the house became the Denison Homestead Museum. Located on Pequotsepos Road in Mystic, the museum presents a different period of time the history of the Denison family in each of its rooms.

This is Historic Buildings of Connecticut’s 500th Post
(not including the April Fools Day post)

The Horace Niles Trumbull House (1860)

On Main Street in Stonington Borough, off Wadawanuck Square, is an Italianate and French Second Empire style mansion built in 1860 by John F. Trumbull, a merchant and factory-owner, for his son, Horace Niles Trumbull. Since 1899, the house has been owned by Josiah Culbert Palmer and his descendants.

Peck Tavern (1680)

The Peck Tavern, where George Washington once danced, is located where Sill Lane branches off from US 1 in Old Lyme. It may have been built as early as 1680, although the main block achieved its present form by about 1769, when John Peck acquired the tavern. The building served as an inn and tavern from the mid-eighteenth century into the nineteenth and remained in the Peck family until 1904. In the 1930s, the building was used by the Old Lyme Guild, a non-profit arts and crafts organization. In recent years, the house served as a bed & breakfast.

The Samuel Webster House (1787)

The house of Samuel Webster and Lucy Bissell Webster, daughter of David Bissell, is on Main Street in the East Windsor Hill section of South Windsor. This early example of a colonial brick house was probably built in 1787, although the sign on the house claims an earlier date of 1760.

First Congregational Church, Canton Center (1814)

A separate Ecclesiastical Society for western Simsbury was established in 1750, although a meetinghouse was not constructed until 1763. In 1806, it became the First Ecclesiastical Society of Canton when that section of Simsbury was incorporated as its own town. In 1814, a second and larger meetinghouse was constructed on the site of the first, on Cherry Brook Road in Canton Center. In 1873, the church was remodeled inside and Gothic stained glass windows were added. Since 1967, the windows and interior have been restored to an approximation of the earlier style. The church’s address is 184 Cherry Brook Road.

Also, if you have not yet read my latest article on architecture, it is now available! The subject is Greek Revival Houses!