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

The Welles-Shipman-Ward House (1755)

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.

Porter-Belden House (1755)

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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The Patrick Murphy House (1873)

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.

The Moses Mitchell House (1791)

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.

Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee, Jr. House (1769)

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…)

Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee House (1765)

Built for Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee on Palisado Green in Windsor around 1765. The Georgian style house is constructed of brick and features a gambrel roof. John Adams dined there in 1774. Dr. Chaffee’s daughter, Abigail, married Colonel James Loomis in 1805. In 1874, their children, including the state senator James Chaffee Loomis, founded the co-educational Loomis Institute. The Chaffee House would later be utilized by the girls’ division, which broke off in 1926 to form the Chaffee School. The two branches reunited in 1970 to form the Loomis-Chaffee School. Records survive relating to the slaves owned by Dr. Chaffee, including the documents for the emancipation of Elizabeth Stevenson. Another slave in the Chaffee household was Nancy Toney, who was later owned by Dr. Chaffee’s daughter, Abigail. When she died in 1857, she was the last surviving slave in Connecticut. The house is now owned by the town of Windsor and is currently open as a museum, maintained and operated by the Windsor Historical Society.

The John and Sarah Strong House (1758)

The Strong House, on Palisado Avenue in Windsor, was long thought to have been built in 1640 and was known for many years as the Lt. Walter Fyler House. Fyler came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1630, settling in Windsor in 1634. He received the land on which the house now stands in 1640 for his service in the Pequot War. Recent research has shown that Fyler’s house actually stood on a different part of his property than the house that was latter attributed to him. The area where this surviving house now stands was later owned by Henry Allyn, who sold it to John Strong, Jr. in 1758. When Strong later sold the property to Alexander Allin in 1762, it contained a dwelling which had not been there before. This is the house which is now called the John and Sarah Strong House.

The original, 1758 gambrel-roofed portion of the house was a half-house, a middle-class home intended to be added to later, as it was with more elaborate additions over the years. The house was saved from demolition in 1925 by the Windsor Historical Society. The house has served the Society as a headquarters, and even as a tea room for several years in the 1920s. Research into this historic structure continues and it is currently open for tours as a house museum.