Built in 1799 in Newington by the farmer and tinsmith Enoch Kelsey and his son, David Kelsey. The Kelsey House originally stood on Kelsey Street, but was moved to Main Street in 1979 by the Newington Historical Society & Trust, and it currently serves as a colonial house museum.
The Beardslee-Mix House was built around 1774 and originally stood on South Main Street in West Hartford. In the 1930s, when the old farms along South Main was being subdivided to build houses, it was moved to Rockledge Drive. The house was probably built by Abraham Webster, brother of Noah Webster. In 1810, the farm was bought by Elisha Mix, who sold it to Jeremiah Beardslee. It then passed to Beardslee’s son-in-law, Henry Mix.
The Old Academy, on Main Street in Wethersfield, was built in 1801-1804 in the Federal style by the town’s First School Society. In 1824, the Rev. Joseph Emerson moved his female seminary, which had previously operated in Massachusetts in Byfield and Saugus, to the Old Academy, where it remained until his death in 1833. The building was also used as Wethersfield’s Town Hall and Library and now houses offices and the Research Collections of the Wethersfield Historical Society.
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Built in 1769, on Sedgwick Road in what is now West Hartford, for Benjamin Colton, son of the Rev. Benjamin Colton who was the West Division of Hartford’s first minister from 1713 until his death in 1759. It was next owned by the first owner’s son, Joseph Colton, and later by his daughter and her husband, Dr. Edward Brace.
The Chapel of Trinity College in Hartford was completed in 1932 and was designed by Philip H. Frohman in the Perpendicular Gothic style. Frohman was the architect of the Washington National Cathedral. There’s an art history thesis paper (pdf file) about the Chapel.
The house built on South Main Street in West Hartford for Asa Gillet in 1760 (although it may date as early as 1725) is one of the oldest on Main Street. Asa’s grandfather, Joseph Gillet, was a signer of the petition in 1710 that requested a West Division of Hartford be established. In that year, the population of what would later become West Hartford was 164.
Built in 1772, on Old Main Street in East Windsor Hill for Smith Bailey, a goldsmith and silversmith. Bailey was married to a granddaughter of Timothy Edwards and had a shop in the building that is now the East Windsor Hill Post Office. His gambrel-roofed house was later owned by neighbor Lucy Webster, who sold it to Daniel Burnap in 1786. Burnap was a famous clock maker, who also worked with silver and brass in his East Windsor workshop. The most famous apprentice he trained was Eli Terry, who was born in the town and would become a prominent clock maker and a pioneer in industrial manufacturing.
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