John Hudson House (1791)

The house at 26 Main Street in Old Mystic, Stonington was built c. 1791 by John Hudson, a tanner, on land he had acquired from Eleazer Williams in 1786. This transaction also included the gristmill across the street, at the head of the Mystic River. After his death in 1808, his son Phineas Hudson, continued the tanning business and inherited the house and mill, excepting the dower rights (1/3 of the house) of John’s widow, Mary. Two years before his death in 1811, Phineas (possibly ailing or under financial strain) sold the mill to his daughter Mary‘s father-in-law, Simon Avery. Mary bought the works back twenty-one years later. Mary married two Avery brothers. According to The Groton Avery Clan (1912), by Elroy McKendree Avery and Catharine Hitchcock Tilden Avery,

[Robert Nieles Avery] was b. Sept. 1, 1785, at Groton; m. June 19, 1806, at Groton, Mary (Polly) Hudson, dau. of Phineas and Margaret Hudson. She was b. Sept. 2, 1787, at Groton. He was a sea captain, and later a farmer. He was killed by the caving in of a sand bank, June 10, 1814. His widow m. 2d, Joseph Swan Avery, a brother of her husband. She d. Feb. 8, 1855, at Mystic.

[Joseph Swan Avery] was b. Oct., 1787, at Groton; m. Mrs. Mary (Hudson) Avery, dau. of Phineas and Margaret Hudson, and widow of his brother, Robert Niles Avery. She was b. Sept. 2, 1787, at Groton. He was a successful merchant and ship owner. She d. Feb. 8, 1855; he d. Nov. 10, 1865, both at Groton.

In 1816, Phineas’ heirs sold the house (except for Mary’s dower rights) to Jasper Latham, who added a shoe shop to the property. The house (now with the shop) was sold again in 1829.

St. John’s Episcopal Church Parsonage, Guilford (1870)

The house at 50 Ledge Hill Road in North Guilford was built circa 1870 by St. John’s Episcopal Church to serve as a parsonage. It replaced an earlier parsonage, built in the 1830s, that had burned down. Part of the building served as a town primary school sometime during the first decade of the twentieth century. The house has been a private residence since the church sold it in 1940-1941.

John D. Latham House (1843)

James D. Latham (1813-1899) was a shipbuilder in Noank. In the 1840s he entered into a partnership to build vessels with his brother, James A. Latham (1808-1902), whose previous partner, John Palmer (1787-1859), had retired. In 1868, James left the business to John, who continued to build ships into the 1880s. John D. Latham’s house at 31 Front Street in Noank was built in 1843, the same year he married John Palmer’s daughter, Lydia.

Capt. Nathaniel Farnham House (1800)

The original owner of the house at 61 Waterside Lane in Clinton, built in 1800, was Captain Nathaniel Farnham. It is said that people living in the house were the first to see the Hartford and New Haven train passing by c. 1852 by climbing to the top of a barn on the property. Caroline A. Kelsey Oakes (born 1851) lived in the house for many years. She was the widow of Captain Lester R. Oakes, who commanded a schooner, the Marian, owned by the Eliot brothers.

Seifert Armory (1891)

As downtown Danbury expanded in the late nineteenth century, commercial buildings were constructed on side streets. One is example is Library Place, formerly a cow path, which was opened after the construction of the Old Danbury Library in 1878. Here, Alexander Wildman built a post office, followed by other commercial buildings, including the Seifert Armory in 1891. Located at 5-15 Library Place, the large armory and commercial building, designed by architect Joel Foster, has storefronts on the ground floor, while the three upper floors contained apartments and the armory hall, itself later converted to apartments. In the 1920s, the Danbury Times began printing in the building and a plate-glass window was installed to show the press at work. The building has lost its original tower that projected above the main entrance. The farthest store on the left now has a Carrara glass (a type of pigmented structural glass) storefront.

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