The Italianate house of Daniel Hand, at 47 Fair Street in Guilford, was built in 1878-1879 by the builders George W. Seward and Sons. Daniel Hand, born in Madison, was a businessman and philanthropist, who died in 1891 at the age of ninety. Please Read on to learn more about what happened to Hand during the Civil War and his act of generosity 25 years later:
In 1775, Governor Jonathan Trumbull recommended that a fort be constructed near the mouth of the Thames River to protect the port of New London. The first Fort Trumbull, completed in 1777, was captured by the British during Arnold’s 1781 Raid. The Fort was rebuilt around 1808 as a “second system” fort, a structure that was later replaced by the present fortification, a “third system” fort, constructed between 1839 and 1852. Fort Trumbull is a five-sided, four-bastion coastal defense fort and is unique among American forts because it was built in the Egyptian Revival style, inspired by the Temple of Luxor. During the Civil War, the Fort was an organizational center and the headquarters of Connecticut’s 14th Infantry Regiment. Over the years, Fort Trumbull has also been used as a training facility: it was the site of the the U.S. Revenue Cutter Academy and then the Coast Guard Academy until 1932; the Merchant Marine Officer Training School program from 1939 to 1946; and was used as the Fort Trumbull campus of the University of Connecticut from 1946 to 1950, where it served veterans attending college under the GI Bill. Fort Trumbull next became the Naval Under Water Sound Laboratory. After the Laboratory was closed in the 1990s, the site was redeveloped to become a State Park. Work began in 1999 and in 2001 it was opened to the public for tours.
Capt. Ira Shailer constructed his house on Bridge Road in Haddam around 1815, two years after acquiring the property. He had married Jerusha Arnold in 1808 and the couple would have a family of ten surviving children. Their son, Alexander Shailer, who was born in the house in 1827, served as a general in the Civil War. The Shailer family eventually moved to New York in 1835 and the house was purchased by Benoni Southworth, a ship captain who had married Ira Shailer’s cousin, Mary Ann Shailer.
William Alfred Buckingham, governor of Connecticut during the Civil War and later a U.S. Senator until his death in 1875, was born in 1804 in a house in Lebanon, which was later moved (see comment below) by his father, Deacon Samuel Buckingham, who built a new house on the location between 1808 and 1817. The new Federal-style Buckingham house was later altered through the addition of Victorianizing features, like the bay windows on the front facade.
Francis Gillette was a politician, lecturer and abolitionist. He pursued agriculture in Bloomfield and lived in an unusual 1834 Greek Revival style stone house on Bloomfield Avenue. In 1852, Gillette moved to Hartford, founding the Nook Farm neighborhood with his brother-in-law, John Hooker. Francis Gillette served as a senator and was the father of actor William Gillette. The house, which was used as an overnight stop for fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, was moved to a new location on Bloomfield Avenue in 1990, after being vacant for 17 years.
The Gideon Welles House, on Hebron Avenue in Glastonbury, was built in 1783 by Samuel Welles, a Revolutionary War captain, for his son of the same name, who had married Anna Hale in 1782. The most famous member of the Welles family to live in the house was Gideon Welles, who was born there in 1802 and would become Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy during the Civil War. The house was inherited by Gideon‘s brother Thaddeus Welles, but Gideon Welles made a notable return visit in 1864 for the funeral of his nephew, who had been a casualty of the war. During the visit, Welles sat on the porch with Admiral David G. Farragut to plan what would become the successful Union victory at the Battle of Mobile Bay. Gideon Welles had been living in a house on Linden Place in Hartford before the Civil War and later lived in a house on Charter Oak Place. Welles also wrote about his time in Lincoln’s cabinet in his book, Lincoln and Seward and in his posthumously published diary.
The house was lived in by members of the Welles family until 1932. It was originally located where the Welles-Chapman Tavern now stands, but was going to be demolished in 1935 to make way for a Post Office. Dr. Lee J. Whittles and others in town formed a committee to save the house and in 1936, Ernest Victor Llewellyn purchased the house and moved it to a neighboring lot on the New London Turnpike (Hebron Avenue). This committee would eventually become the Historical Society of Glastonbury. In 1974, the house was again moved further up Hebron Avenue to become a Senior Center. Still owned by the town today, the building now houses businesses and shops.
The Commodore Charles Green House, designed by the important architect A.J. Davis is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style. Built in 1851 on Main Street in South Windsor, it was the home of Commodore Green, a naval officer who captured a Confederate blockade runner during the Civil War. (more…)
