Nathan Smith House (1735)

The house at 140 Burrows Hill Road in Hebron was built c. 1735–1744 by a Mr. Porter. It was purchased by the Smith family in 1794 and remained in that family until 2009. Nathan Smith, the second Smith to live in the home, remarried at age 65. In 1853, he added the Greek Revival north ell, where his father lived after retiring from farming. It is one of three additions that have been made to the house’s north side. There is also a kitchen addition at the rear of the house.

The Smith farm grew to hundreds of acres and included Prophet’s Rock, the town’s oldest historic landmark. The legend of Prophet’s Rock is related by Gov. John S. Peters in his “Historical Notes,” written in 1843 and quoted by F.C. Bissell in Hebron, Connecticut Bicentennial (1908). A group of men from Windsor had set out to explore and find places to settle in the area.

While the men were making preparations for their families in the summer of 1706 they brought their provisions with them and remained for weeks at their new home. Their wives being anxious for the welfare of their husbands and unwilling to be left too long alone, four or five started one shining morning for the promised land, twenty long miles through the wilderness, regulating their course by marked trees and crossing the streams on logs felled for that purpose. Night overtook them in the lower part of Gilead, they wandered from the line and brought up on the hill south of Nathan Smith’s house. Fearing the wolves would regale themselves upon their delicious bodies they concluded to roost upon the top of the high rock on the summit of said hill. Here they proclaimed their lamentations to the winds. This novel serenade attracted the attention of their husbands, who wandered towards the sound until they fortunately but unexpectedly found their wives on the rock, which they had chosen for their night’s repose. The gratification of the interview can be better imagined than expressed.

The location of this rock has been handed down to the present time and it is now known as “Prophet’s Rock.”

In 2003, when the Smith family had decided to develop part of their land off Burrows Hill Road, Prophet’s Rock and an easement to reach it from Burrows Hill Road were deeded to the town.