The William Pendleton House, on Main Street in Stonington Borough, is a Greek Revival style house, which retains elements of the Federal style. It was built after 1831 (perhaps as late as 1840) for Pendleton, who was a merchant. The gable may have been added later. During Prohibition, the house’s basement was used as an illegal bar, or speakeasy, and the period decor and original bar have been preserved by later owners.
The 1840 house, built by Henry Smith for Ephraim Williams, Jr., on Water Street in Stonington Borough, combines features of the Federal and Greek Revival styles. Ephraim Williams, Jr.’s father and uncle, Charles P. Williams, were both successful and wealthy businessmen.
Stonington’s first lighthouse was built in 1824, but after an 1838 inspection, it was found the building was deteriorating and had moved 25 feet due to erosion. Reusing stones from the first building, a new stone lighthouse, with a 35-foot tower, was built in 1840 by John Bishop further up Stonington Borough’s peninsula. This lighthouse served until 1889. By that time, a privately owned signal on Stonington’s newly constructed breakwater had proven to be more effective than the old lighthouse, so a new cast-iron Stonington Breakwater Light (replaced in 1926) was built. The earlier Harbor Light continued to be used as the new lighthouse keeper’s home until a house was built in 1908. In 1925, the old building was sold at auction and then donated to the Stonington Historical Society. Since 1927, the Stonington Harbor Lighthouse has been open to the public as the Old Lighthouse Museum, with exhibits about Stonington’s maritime history.
The oldest section of what is now the Avon Old Farms Inn, at the intersection of Routes 10 and 44 in Avon, is a house built by Nathaniel North in 1757, on land which had been granted to his father, Thomas North, after his service in King Phillip’s War. Thomas’ father, John North, had arrived in the vicinity of Northington (the north part of Farmington, now Avon) in the 1630s. The house was later owned by Nathaniel North‘s great-grandson, John North, a blacksmith who added the 1832 stone blacksmith shop, which is now connected to the house. Across Route 44, once stood Marshall Tavern, a former stagecoach stop, which was demolished in 1933 to improve traffic safety at the intersection. The North House was also used to accommodate travelers, becoming the Old Farms Inn in 1923.
The building which now houses the LaSalle Market, on Main Street in Collinsville (in Canton) is a late nineteenth century commercial building with projecting eaves and brackets in the Italianate style. A picture from the 1890s survives showing various businesses in operation, including a meat market and a boots and shoe store. The LaSalle Market began in the 1970s on LaSalle Road in West Hartford and moved to Collinsville in 1984.
The Douglas House, on Main Street in Glastonbury, is a Queen Anne structure with a steeply pitched roof. The house was built in 1894 and is now a duplex.
Built in 1803 (or possibly much earlier), the tinsmith shop of Asa Andrews is located next to a small green, off Main Street in Farmington. The tinsmith Andrews, whose house was nearby, specialized in japanned tinware (japanning is a type of varnishing or painting on tin and other materials). He was also “the maker of those chandeliers, compounds of wood and tin, that long hung from the meeting-house ceiling.” The building is now a private residence.
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