A rare example in Manchester of a Federal style house is located at 612 Middle Turnpike East. The house was erected c. 1825, probably by Benjamin Lyman, who had begun acquiring land in the area before that year. Much altered over the years, today it is home to Green Lodge, an assisted living facility.
Grover L’Hommedieu (1741-1841) was one of the patriot militiamen who became refugees from Long Island to Connecticut after the Battle of Long Island in 1776 during the Revolutionary War. He settled in Norwich and in 1797 leased land from Samuel Lay in Essex. There he erected the town’s first ropewalk. Around that time he also erected the house at 32 Main Street in Essex. It was later occupied by his son Ezra L’Hommedieu (1772-1860), a ship-carver who invented the double-podded center screw auger, which he patented in 1809. Grover’s daughter Sarah (Sally) married Ebenezer Hayden II, the town’s leading merchant. In 1802, Grover L’Hommedieu sold the ropewalk to his partner, Ebenezer’s son, Jared. In 1815, the L’Hommedieu House was purchased by another member of the Hayden family, John G. Hayden.
By 1852, the house at 99 Great Hill Road (as well as the land across the street) in North Guilford was owned by Victor Fowler (1799-1868). It is uncertain when the house was built, but it may date to c. 1820. A large two-story porch was added to the house in the 1940s.
The house at 2734 Long Hill Road in North Guilford is thought to have been built c. 1835 and may have been used as a store. It has previously been dated c. 1825.
Masjid al-Mustafa in East Hartford (there is also a Masjid al-Mustafa in Waterbury) is a mosque located in a former house at 20 Church Street. The house was built circa 1840 and was remodeled in 1880. Before becoming a mosque, the building had been expanded in the 1950s by Father Austin Munich of St. Rose Church, located across the street, to become a convent for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who were the teaching staff of St. Rose School.
Three brothers, George, Clark and Thomas Greenman, founded the George Greenman & Co. Shipyard in Mystic (now the location of Mystic Seaport). Each erected a house along Greenmanville Avenue, the last being the home of Thomas S. Greenman. Erected in 1842, the house has a cast-iron fence, put up about 1866, and a porch, added in the 1870s. Thomas Greenman’s granddaughter, Mary Stillman Harkness, donated the house to Mystic Seaport in 1945. An exhibit was opened in the house in 1952, while the kitchen and upstairs rooms are used as offices.
(more…)
Abijah Catlin II (1747-1813) built the house at 1 Harmony Hill Road in Harwinton c. 1760-1765. Land in the area had been granted to his father, Abijah Catlin I (1715-1778) in 1739, soon after the Town of Harwinton was formed in 1737. In addition to the house, which he operated as an inn, Catlin also built a store just to the west on the same property. Guests at the inn included General George Washington, General Henry Knox, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who stopped there on their way back to West Pont after meeting with General Rochambeau in Hartford in September, 1780. The house is at the intersection of Burlington and Harmony Hill Roads, a crossroads that became known as Catlin’s Corners.
You must be logged in to post a comment.