Poisson-Belden Cottage (1741)

simsburycottage.JPG

On the grounds of the Simsbury Historical Society (near the Phelps Tavern) is a eighteenth century cottage, which was moved there in the 1970s. It was originally built by John Poisson, a weaver, and was later owned by Horace Belden (there is a pdf file with information on Belden, who did a great deal for the town during his long life). The front of the house is left unpainted to display the original clapboards.

The Seth Cheney House (1910)

sethcheneyhouse.jpg

The Seth Cheney House, on Hartford Road in Manchester, was probably built sometime in the mid-nineteenth century and was remodeled in 1910. Located northeast of the Cheney Homestead, it is one of Manchester’s Cheney Mansions. A later owner (in the 1890s) was Mrs. Emeline Cheney (widow of Arthur Cheney), who had an interest in Spiritualism and was a friend and confidant of Isabella Beecher Hooker. Today, the house is a bed-and-breakfast known as the Mansion Inn.

The Welch-Parker House (1812)

oldparsonage.jpg

Rev. Daniel Welch, minister from 1751 to 1782 of Mansfield’s North Society Church (now the Storrs Congregational Church), constructed a house on the Old Turnpike in Mansfield, on land he had purchased in 1755. As this parsonage was his own property (not the church’s), it was passed to his children, eventually becoming the home of his son and successor as minister, Rev. Moses Cook Welch, who had earlier studied law and became known as a great ecclesiastical lawyer. When the original house burned in 1812, it was replaced by the current building. In 1825, when Moses Welch died, his son, the prominent physician Dr. Archibald Welch of Wethersfield, sold the house and farmland out of the family. The property has had a number of owners and was was bought, in 1906, by Martin Hibbard Parker, who had married Edna Mason, a daughter of Charles Mason. The house was restored in the 1990s.

First Congregational Church of South Windsor (1846)

firstchurchsouthwindsor.jpg

In 1691, the settlement of East Windsor petitioned the Connecticut General Court for the privilege of having its own church and minister, seperate from Windsor. In 1694, the first meeting house was constructed (to be replaced in 1714). The first minister, ordained in 1698, was Timothy Edwards, father of the renowned preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards, who was born in the East Windsor Hill neighborhood. East Windsor became incorporated as a seperate town in 1768 and in 1845, South Windsor separated from East Windsor. The area where the Edwards had lived was part of the new town. The current Timothy Edwards Church (First Congregational Church of South Windsor) is on Main Street and was built in 1846.