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

North Branford Hall (1876)

The building that is known today as North Branford Hall was erected c. 1876 as the town’s Center School (District #2). Located at 1675 Foxon Road in North Branford, it replaced an earlier school building on the site that had been moved there from across the street in 1866 when the Soldiers’ Monument was erected. After a new Center School was built in 1920, the 1876 building was acquired by the North Branford Civic Association. The former school, which has lost its original bell tower, would served for many years as Town Hall and later (until 2013) as a senior center. A rear addition was constructed in 1925. Last year, the building was completely renovated to become the new home of Totoket TV’s Community Media Center.

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David Wickham House (1745)

David Wickham (1714-1797), a shoemaker, purchased land to build the house at 1197 Main Street in Glastonbury in 1742, with additional land purchased in 1745, by which time the house was standing. Across the rear of the house is a one-story shed-roof extension which is part of the original construction.

James Hodge House (1810)

The house at 87 Ferry Lane in Glastonbury was erected c. 1810 by James Hodge, who was descended from one of the town’s earliest settlers. In 1869, it was the home of James Caswell, who had his cabinetmaking shop nearby.

Abiel Cheney, Jr. House (1784)

The house at 46 Indian Hill Road in Portland was built c. 1784–1785 (or later, in 1796) by Abiel Cheney, Jr. It was later owned by George Lewis, Jr., who ran the nearby shipyard and had another house at 628 Main Street.

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George Lewis, Jr. House (1778)

George Lewis, Jr. (1747-1826) was a shipbuilder who erected the house at 628 Main Street in Portland in 1778. His shipyard was nearby, along the Connecticut River. As described in the History of Middlesex County (1884):

For more than a century and a half shipbuilding has been the chief industry of that part of Portland now called Gildersleeve, and it was for a time the most active business in the town. Early in the last century, George Lewis built vessels on the present site of the Gildersleeve yard. The first vessel built in Portland was launched here in October 1741.

Sylvester Gildersleeve purchased the Lewis yard from George Lewis, Jr.’s son, Abel Lewis, in 1838. In 1927, the house the residence of George Lewis’s granddaughter, Elizabeth H. Gildersleeve.

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William H. Beebe House (1880)

The house at 540 Main Street in Portland was built c. 1880. According to Doris Sherrow, the house’s first owner, William H. Beebe, was a quarryman, although shortly before his death he purchased newspaper printing machinery. He may be the same William H. Beebe listed in the Middletown and Portland Directory for 1886-7 as a “molder bds.” In the early twentieth century, the property was used as a gas station. Frederick Haines ran the garage in the nineteen teens and twenties and George Bot in the 1930s. On the south front lawn, two concrete tracks, with the space between now filled in, are remnants of the garage’s old grease pit.

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Lane-Gillette House (1846)

The house at 222 Barbourtown Road in Canton, long owned by the Gillette family, was built c. 1846-1851 by Henry P. Lane. The house appears to have been much expanded over the years.