Samuel Coe Store (1846)

The building at 686 Main Street in Winsted was built in 1846 as a country store by Samuel Coe. At the time, the Beardsley House, a hotel and commercial block that burned down in 1939, was located just across the turnpike. Coe had previously been in partnership with Luman Hubbell, who is described in the History of the Hubbell Family (1881), by Walter Hubbell:

LUMAN HUBBELL, of Winsted (in Winchester), Litchfield County, Connecticut, son of Silliman Hubbell and Hannah Taylor, was born in Danbury, Connecticut, August 28th, 1797.

His parents moved to Winchester in 1800, and at the age of fourteen years he was apprenticed to Earl P. Pease, a woollen manufacturer of Norfolk, Connecticut, and took up the branch of “blue dyeing,” in which he became so proficient that he received one thousand dollars per year for his services, “a large salary in those days.”

He resided in Massachusetts for several years, and returned to Winsted in 1828, where he became a permanent resident.

In 1831 he formed a partnership with Mr. Coe, under the firm name of Coe & Hubbell. A large business was established by this house, and in 1846 they erected a new-store, and were preparing to move into it when Mr. Hubbell was attacked by a sudden illness, from which he died October 8th, 1846.

The Coe Store remained in the family for several decades, being operated for a time by James W. Coe. The building was vacant in 1887. Around that time, the originally Greek Revival structure was altered, the roofline being lowered to its present shallower pitch. Since then it has housed a variety of businesses. The current storefronts date to the twentieth century.