Rev. Samuel Clark House (1759)

Reverend Samuel Clark (1729-1778), a Princeton graduate, was ordained in the Kensington Congregational Church in Berlin 1756 and then served as its minister until his death twenty-two years later. He built the grand house at 67 Burnham Street, one of the earliest brick residences in Connecticut, in 1759, but did not marry until 1766, when he wed Jerusha White. The latter part of his pastorate was contentious and the congregation split into separate societies in 1772. In 1773, Rev. Clark entered into a financially unsuccessful partnership, ending in a quarrel, with merchant Jonathan Hart. At the time of his death the Revolutionary War was underway and Rev. Clark was facing dismissal from his pastorate for suspected Tory sympathies. His house was next occupied by Rev. Benoni Upson, who succeeded him as minister. The Upson family lived in the house into the twentieth century. The house has a white-painted twentieth-century addition to the left of its front facade.