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

Billings Burtch House (1780)

The Billings Burtch House, located at 19 Nothwest Street in Stonington, was built circa 1780. The house may be named for Sgt. Billing Burtch (1746-1836). Grace Denison Wheeler describes the house in her 1903 book, The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn.:

The Billings Burtch house formerly stood where Mr. Peleg Hancox built his fine new house on Water Street, but about 1850 it was moved from there to the corner of Water and High Streets by Mr. Ezra Chesebrough, who purchased it and placed it where it now stands. It was some three feet or more above the road bed, with its yellow front door facing south, the approach to which was by some rambling stone flags, or slabs, about four or five inches thick, and placed as they were broken out with neither form nor comeliness. At one time the house was tenanted by George Howe, who was sexton and tithing-man at the old Baptist Church, and at another time Mrs. Elias Gallup, sister of Mrs. Ezra Chesebrough, lived there and had a millinery store. According to an old letter found, Mr. Billings Burtch died in this house aged ninety-two years.

The house must have been moved again to its current address.

434 Oxford Road, Oxford (1838)

Ransom Hudson (1810-1871) was a farmer and shoemaker in Oxford who also served as postmaster and Justice of the Peace. He built the house at 434 Oxford Road in Oxford for his mother, Mary Clark.

The house at 67 Church Street in East Hartford was built as a five-bay Federal-style house by Stephen Cadwell shortly after he bought the land in 1822. He sold it just a few years later. The sixth bay to the north was added c. the 1870s. The bay window on the south end was also added later.

Ivoryton Library (1889)

In the later nineteenth century, the section of the Town of Essex, west of the village of Centerbrook would develop into the village of Ivoryton, centered on the manufacturing of ivory products by Comstock, Cheney & Company. In 1871, a decade before the name Ivoryton came to be used for the area, local residents formed the Centerbrook Circulating Library (now the Ivoryton Library Association). The library received vital support from members of the Comstock and Cheney families who ran the local factory. For many years the Library’s books were located at the home of Samuel Cheney, but as early as 1874, money began to be raised for a dedicated library building. Archibald W. Comstock and his sister Harriet donated land for the library in 1888. The Ivoryton Library, located at 106 Main Street, was dedicated in November 1889. For many years the new library was run by Bessie and Laura Comstock, unmarried granddaughters of the ivory-cutting factory’s founder, Samuel M. Comstock. Except for one early twentieth-century addition, the library appears much as it did when it first opened and continues as a private non-profit institution. It is the oldest library in the Town of Essex, preceding the Essex Library Association (also a private institution) at 33 West Avenue in Essex village. While many Connecticut towns once had private libraries that later become town operated public libraries, the two library associations in Essex remain private institutions.

Connor Chapel of Our Lady, University of Saint Joseph (1966)

The University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford is a Roman Catholic coeducational institution of higher education that was founded in 1932 as a college for women. The University‘s Chapel, built in 1965-1966, was the gift of Joseph and Jane Cullen Connor. Joseph passed away two weeks before the ceremonial groundbreaking, which took place on July 16, 1965. Jane broke ground and as she dug in her shovel she prayed “May all who enter this Chapel be saved.” These words are inscribed on the narthex floor inside the main doors. The Connor Chapel of Our Lady has the shape of a cross and the interior focuses on a central raised altar.

John Palmer House (1859)

The house at 18 Church Street in the village of Noank in Groton was built in 1859. It is known as the John Palmer House. This was possibly the John Palmer whose father, John Palmer (1787-1859), started the shipbuilding business in Noank that his sons, John and Robert, would develop into the highly successful Noank Shipyard, known as the Palmer Yard.

Marcia Thompson Schoolhouse (1814)

Located on the property of the Andrew Baldwin House, 63 Main Street in North Stonington, is an 1814 one-room schoolhouse. Originally located on Taugwonk Road in Stonington, the school was in operation until the 1920s. In the late twentieth century, it was moved to its current location by Fred and Alma Lampert, who owned the Baldwin House. The couple had also built a gristmill and a replica of the original blacksmith shop on the property and used the old carriage house as a museum of historical artifacts. Their property contained the foundation of the North Stonington village’s own lost schoolhouse and the 1814 school building was moved onto it. The Limperts furnished the schoolhouse based on a photograph they received from Marcia Bentley Thompson (1892-1990) that showed her on her first day as a teacher in 1911 in a one-room school in the Clarks Falls section of North Stonington. When the restoration was completed the Limperts named it the Marcia Thompson Schoolhouse.