Samuel Hitchcock House (1850)

The house at 402 West Main Street in Cheshire was built around 1850. It has been much altered over the years, with the finely detailed Victorian bay windows on the second floor being added later in the nineteenth century. The house’s first resident was Samuel Hitchcock, a factory owner who started manufacturing suspenders and other forms of webbing in 1853. As described in the History of New Haven County, Connecticut, Vol. I (1892), edited by J. L. Rockey:

Samuel Hitchcock, born in Cheshire in 1813, is a son of Joseph Hitchcock, also born in Cheshire. Samuel was brought up on a farm and when 19 years old engaged in the mercantile trade, following that business until about 1860. He later engaged in manufacturing suspenders, built the large factory at West Cheshire, and operated it as the Hitchcock Manufacturing Company. The factory was sold to the American Braid Company, and they afterward added the manufacture of vegetable ivory buttons. Mr. Hitchcock had the entire charge of these industries. He retired from active business in 1882. He was married in 1835, to Lucy S. Bradley, of Cheshire. They lost their last child in October, 1889.. They celebrated their golden wedding in 1885.