At 102 Front Street in Noank is a small building with board-and-batten siding that is believed to have been the community’s original railroad station. It was built in 1858, with the completion of the last major section of the Shore Line Rail Road, connecting Boston and New York City. Since the discontinuation of railroad service, the building has been used as a store, with an extension erected on the Front Street side.
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Now used as an attorney’s office, the house at 152 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel was built c. 1845. From at least 1851 until 1867, it was the home of Andrew L. Benedict (born 1822), a New York merchant who also lived in Bethel, where he was a deacon of the Congregational Church and served as Justice of the Peace, Postmaster and on the Board of Education. He married Ruth Newell Allen in 1847. Their daughter, Ursula E. Benedict, was a member of the D.A.R. The house remained in the Benedict family until 1912, afterwards serving as the Bethel Public Library until 1924. It was later owned by William Hanna and then his wife, Elaine Hanna. Their son, Richard Hanna, was a Danbury attorney.
The construction date for the Greek Revival building at 55 Tolland Green in Tolland is uncertain. It was built c. 1750 to 1790, during which time it was used as an armory and then for the manufacture of sorghum molasses. It was moved to its current location by Col. Elijah Smith, who owned an adjacent tavern, and was used by his sons as a store. From then on, it has housed various small businesses. Charles Sterry, who served as Tolland postmaster for thirty-two years, from 1903 until his death, operated the post office, as well as his grain store and leatherworking business, from the building’s corner room. He was succeeded by Bertha Place, who sold candy, tobacco and stationary, and was postmistress until her retirement in 1956. She was followed by Helen Clough, who died 1968. Three years before, the post office had moved to Tolland Stage Road, leaving the building where it had been located for over sixty years.
At 530 Foxon Road in North Branford is a one-story hip-roofed house with a grand Greek Revival entryway. The house’s distinctive design has been attributed to the famed architect Ithiel Town. In 1827, Deacon Israel Baldwin deeded forty-two acres of land to his son, Micah Baldwin, a New York merchant, who may have known the architect. In 1834, Micah gave the house, erected c. 1832, and the land to his nephew, George Baldwin, a farmer of modest means. The house has many secret hiding places and the basement may once have had a connecting tunnel, leading to the conclusion it may have been built specifically to serve as a station on the Underground Railroad. Micah and his brother Josiah Baldwin were abolitionists and Town may have been sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause. The house was owned by the Doody family from 1919 to 1948.
The house at 150 Barbertown Road in Canton was built in 1839 by Alson Barber (1792-1880) to replace an earlier house built for him at the time of his marriage in 1814 to Hannah Humphrey by his father, Reuben Barber. As described by lawyer Sylvester Barbour in his Reminiscences (1908):
The family of Alson Barber is the most remarkable I have known, and seems to me worthy of special mention. He was born May 6, 1792, and died April 5, 1880. He was brother to Sadosa (their father, Reuben, being the first person buried in the Center cemetery), and first cousin to my father, Henry Barbour. His wife, Hannah Humphrey (born December 4, 1796, died April 19, 1877), was a sister to the Rev. Heman Humphrey, D.D., [. . .] and sister to my mother, thus producing double relationship between the children of the two families. John Brown, the martyr, was first cousin to these sisters and brother. Alson and Hannah were married November 16, 1814, and the following named twelve children were born to them: Luther Humphrey, Maria, Nelson, Harriet, Sarah, Gaylord, John, Jennette, Lemuel, Mary, Hannah and Martha. All of these children lived to adult years, all were married, and excepting the first named, had children of their own. [. . .] All because members of the church in their youth and lived exemplarily. The parents lived together most happily more than 62 years, and celebrated their golden wedding and the sixtieth anniversary of their marriage. At the former celebration eleven of their twelve children were present, and at the latter nine were present. Thirty-five grandchildren were living at the time of the former celebration, and all the children were living at the sixty-second anniversary of the parents’ marriage.
Alson’s son, Gaylord, later ran the farm and erected barns on the property.
I’m doing a talk tomorrow about Nook Farm, the Hartford neighborhood of Mark Twain & Harriet Beecher Stowe, at the Elmwood Senior Center in West Hartford at 10:30 am. The non-member price is $4.00. Come by if you are available!
In 1822, Deacon Charles Lee acquired the rights to erect a cotton mill on the east side of what is now Bridge Street in Willimantic. The mill was acquired in 1845 by two men from Rhode Island, Amos and James Smith, who renamed it the Smithville Manufacturing Company. In 1828, three men from Rhode Island, Mathew Watson, and Nathan and Arunah Tingley, erected another cotton mill, called the Windham Manufacturing Company, on the west side of Bridge Street. The Smithville and Windham mills, on either side of Bridge Street, would merge in 1907. The company would later be named the Quidnik-Windham Manufacturing Company. The stone mill buildings do not survive today, but some of the worker housing and a former company store, remain standing. An assessor’s record dates the store to c. 1850, although it may have been constructed in the 1820s by Deacon Lee himself. It may also have been the Windham Manufacturing Company store that was owned by George M. Harrington from 1874 to 1883. Located at 24 Bridge Street, the store is built of ashlar granite, with alternating courses of wide and narrow stone. The south gable-end of the building has large loading bay windows facing the adjacent railroad tracks.
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