At 1 Chaplin Street in Chaplin is a small Greek Revival building erected in 1840 as the Town Hall. The current Chaplin Town Hall is located at 495 Phoenixville Road. The old Town Hall is now the Chaplin Museum.
Located at 112 Main Street in the Rockfall neighborhood of Middlefield is a house built c. 1820 by Joseph Hale. He had received the land from his uncle in 1819, after his marriage to Julia Stow (died 1843). As executor, Hale settled the estate of his father-in-law, Joshua Stow, and then sold the house to Freeman Johnson in 1849. Hale moved to Ohio, where he died in 1855. Johnson sold the house to his son, Ira N. Johnson, who manufactured pistols. As related in the History of Middlefield and Long Hill (1883), by Thomas Atkins,
[the] Pistol factory was erected by a company of young men, namely, Henry Aston, Ira N. Johnson, Sylvester Bailey, John North, Nelson Aston, and Peter Ashton. They took a large contract of the government of the United States for making pistols; an additional contract was granted them. When the work was finished the property was put up at auction by the company, and Ira N. Johnson was the highest bidder, and the property came to him in 1852. Since then, the manufacture of pistols and other things has been carried on by Johnson and others up to the time the factory was burned, which was on the night of the 21st of Sept., 1879.
The house at 55 Barry Road in Oxford was built in 1799 by James Dorman, who sold it the following year to George Cable. This sale included half-interest in a sawmill and gristmill, called Burrell Mills, located across the road along Eight Mile Brook. For a century, owners of the house would also own the mill, which is no longer in existence. The house has had many owners over the years, but was long known as the Bidwell Place, named for Henry E. Bidwell (1804-1883), who bought the house c. 1837. His family sold it in 1885. In the 1930s, the property, known as Petticoat Farm, was owned by H. Reinhardt Lewis, an artist who painted the local landscape. Built into a hillside, the house has an extra story in the rear.
Built c. 1846, the house at 11 Pearl Street in the village of Noank in Groton is an interesting variation on the Greek Revival style. It is known as the John T. Wheeler House.
The house at 64 (66 in the nomination form for the Noank Historic District) Pearl Street in Noank was built in 1846. It is known as the Rouse Davis House. According to the Genealogical and Biographical Record of New London County, Connecticut (published by J.H. Beers & Company of Chicago, 1905):
Rouse Davis grew up at Westerly, [RI] and in early manhood went as a young farmer on Fisher’s Island, where he met the lady that later became his wife; she was Desire Brown, daughter of Peter Brown, of Stonington. After their marriage they lived for a time in Groton engaged in farming, and then moved to Quaugutaug Hill in Stonington. Mr. Davis was an industrious, reliable man, and was engaged in various kinds of work at Mystic, New London, Sag Harbor and Noank. His death took place in the present home of [his son] Capt. [Henry E.] Davis, in 1861, at the age of sixty-three years. His widow survived to the age of eighty-six years, dying in 1881. They were good, Christian people, members of the Baptist Church at Noank.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Noank, built in 1902, was a mission of St. Patrick’s Church in Mystic. Located at 78 Front Street, the former St. Joseph’s Church is now a private residence.
In the nineteenth century, as the Bayliville section of Middlefield developed into an industrial area, many houses were erected for local workers. A good example of one of these is the house at 53 High Street. It was built in 1866 by Martin Moon, who possibly worked at the Metropolitan Washing Machine Company. Moon purchased the land using the severance pay he received after his service in the Union army during the Civil War. The house was later owned by the Lyman Gun Sight Corporation.
