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

First Congregational Church, New Haven (1814)

Now that April Fools Day is over, the rest of April will be New Haven Month at Historic Buildings of CT. First up is New Haven’s First Congregational Church, also called Center Church on-the-Green, due to its central location, between two other churches, on New Haven Green. The city’s congregation goes back to the founding of the New Haven colony in 1838. The new town was carefully planned out by the settlers in what is known as the “Nine Square Plan,” with New Haven Green at the center. Four successive Meeting Houses were constructed on the Green: the first in 1640, the second in 1669 and the third in 1757. The fourth and current church was built, in the Federal style, between 1812-1814. Designed by Asher Benjamin, who sent the plans from Boston, the church was built by the then unknown Ithiel Town, who may have added some of his own elements to the design. The building was one of many in America modeled on St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The interior was remodeled by Henry Austin in 1842. Center Church is also famous for having been partly constructed over the town’s old Colonial burying ground, remains of which can be found in the church’s Crypt.

Eliakim Cook House (1790)

Eliakim Cook of East Windsor Hill (now in South Windsor) bought a house on Old Main Street in 1738 that had been built by Matthew Grant in 1710. Eliakim died in 1776 and in 1778 the house was rented to Dr. Primus Manumit. Formerly a slave belonging to Dr. Alexander Wolcott of Windsor, Primus was released from bondage and took the Latin word “Manumit” as his surname Having assisted Dr. Wolcott over the years in preparing medicines for the sick, he moved to East Windsor and worked as a doctor until his death in 1787. The old Eliakim Cook house was removed around 1790 when Cook’s grandson, also named Eliakim, built the current house on the lot. Not long after it was built, Eliakim sold it to his brother, Benjamin Cook, Jr. Note: This post was written on 09/02/2011 and backdated so that there would be a regular post for 04/01/2008 as well as an April Fool’s Post.

Gridley-Case Cottages (1771)

The Gridley and Case Cottages, on Main Street in Farmington, were constructed in the late eighteenth century and are rare surviving examples of modest workmen’s cottages. The two cottages were built sometime after 1771, when John Case purchased the land. Case himself lived in his homestead nearby and workmen occupied the cottages. At some point, Alexander Gridley started living in the smaller of the two, which he sold it to John’s son, Coral Case, in 1797. It was then used as a hat shop by Coral, who died in 1800. Many people owned or lived in the cottages over the years, until they were sold, in 1970, to James McArthur Thomson, who was living in the Gen. George Cowles House. He worked to preserve the cottages, which were left to the town at his death in 1993 and were eventually donated to the Farmington Historical Society in 1998. The society’s offices are now in the larger cottage, while the smaller cottage is rented out as a residence.

Abel Lewis Tavern (1794)

Completed in 1794, the tavern operated by Abel Lewis and his wife, Ruth, on Maple Street in Bristol, served patrons into the nineteenth century and was the venue for public dances. Abel and Ruth were the parents of Miles Lewis, who lived nearby. In 1890, the property was purchased by the Bristol Builder Joel T. Case, who Victorianized the house, adding a roof dormer, porches and decorative trim and siding.

Oldgate (1782)

Watch my YouTube Short about this house. In the video I give the house’s year as 1790, but it was actually built in c. 1782.

By about 1780, the wealthy Farmington merchant Zenas Cowles bought a house (built in 1690) on Main Street, at Meadow Lane, that had been lived in by blacksmith Isaac Bidwell (and earlier by the town’s first two ministers). Zenas’s brother, Solomon Cowles, lived in a house just across Meadow Road. Circa 1782, Zenas employed the British architect William Sprats to build a newer and grander house around the older one. Sprats had been a British officer during the Revolutionary War, but was captured and remained in America after the war. He may have employed former Hessian soldiers, who had also been prisoners, as carpenters in the construction of the house. Designed in an elaborately detailed Georgian-style, the house is known as Oldgate because of the property’s front gate, which features a broken scroll pediment and an Asian design signifying “peace and prosperity.” In the nineteenth century, the house was home to Thomas Cowles, a prominent Farmington resident, politician and abolitionist. A later owner of the house was Rear Admiral William Sheffield Cowles, whose wife, Anna Roosevelt Cowles, was the sister of President Theodore Roosevelt, who visited Farmington in October of 1901.

The Byron Loomis House (1850)

Byron Loomis was the son of Neland Loomis, one of the six Loomis brothers who established themselves in Suffield as tobacco merchants (another brother was John Welles Loomis). Byron Loomis, who became one of the wealthiest tobacco barons in Suffield, may have built his Italianate house on South Main Street as early as 1850, or perhaps in the 1860s.

Winthrop W. Dunbar House (1890)

The Winthrop W. Dunbar House was built on South Street in Bristol around 1890. Winthrop Dunbar’s father, Col. Edward L. Dunbar, was a manufacturer of clock springs who was partners for a time (in the 1860s) with Wallace Barnes. After his father‘s death, Winthrop Dunbar, together with his brothers, Edward B. and William A. Dunbar, formed the Dunbar Brothers Company in 1872. This company was eventually taken over by the Wallace Barnes Company. The Italianate-style Dunbar House, which features a Second Empire tower, is now used for apartments.