Built in 1786, on Main Street in East Windsor Hill (now in South Windsor) by Aaron Grant, Jr., a carpenter who served in the Revolutionary War. His father, the senior Aaron Grant, had worked on the Ebeneezer Grant House. In 1835, the house was purchased by Joshua Risley, a wagon-maker. He added the second floor to what was originally a one-story gambrel-roofed building. A Greek Revival doorway was also added.
Built in 1814, on Worthington Ridge in Berlin, at what was once known as Boston Corners, the Berlin Hotel was a tavern on the Boston Post Road kept by Benjamin Galpin. Horses would be changed here and one room housed the post office. The hotel closed in 1862.
Built in 1755 on Main Street in South Glastonbury by the shipbuilder, Col. Thomas Welles for his son, John Welles and his wife, Jerusha Edwards Welles. The Welles family owned the house until 1789, when losses on three privateers built during the Revolutionary War forced them to sell it to two creditors, Stephen Shipman, Jr. and Nathaniel Talcott, Jr. Shipman eventually bought the entire property and added neoclassical, Federal-style features. His family owned the house for over a century. In 1925, it was purchased by Berdena Hart Ward, who restored the home and gave it to the Historical Society of Glastonbury in 1962. It is currently open for tours as the Welles-Shipman-Ward House Museum.
Dr. Ezekiel Porter bought a lot off Main Street in Wethersfield in 1743 and sometime, from the 1750s to the 1770s, he built the house that stands there today, possibly for his daughter Abigail and her husband, the merchant Thomas Belden. Their son, Ezekiel Porter Belden, served as an officer in the Dragoons during the Revolutionary War. Later, the Porter-Belden house was the home of Mary Belden and her husband, Frederick Butler, who authored the first Complete History of the United States of America (1821). Their son, Thomas Belden Butler, served as Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Early in the twentieth century, the house was made into a multi-family structure. The paneling from two rooms, as well some of the family furniture, are now in the Brooklyn Museum.
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Windsor has many historic homes, so here is the eighth one in a row this week. The 1873 Patrick Murphy House is on Palisado Avenue. This Italianate-style home is currently for sale.
We conclude what’s been a week-long look at historical houses in Windsor with the Moses Mitchell House, built around 1791 on Palisado Avenue. Moses Mitchell was a free African-American farmer who was a founding member of Windsor’s Methodist Episcopal Church.
The house at 5 North Meadow Road in Windsor was built around 1769 by the architect and builder Thomas Hayden [the most recent sign on the house gives the date 1789 and calls it the Thomas Hayden House]. He also built the John Watson House in South Windsor, additions to the Phelps-Hatheway House in Suffield and the Oliver Ellsworth House in Windsor. He may also have built the house of Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee, Sr. Dr. Chaffee deeded this double-hipped-roofed Georgian house to his son in 1789. (more…)
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