Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

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Samuel Parsons House (1759)

Built around 1759, the Samuel Parsons House, on Main Street in Wallingford, once served as a tavern when stage coaches stopped there. Featuring many traditional colonial elements, the house is transitional in style because it also has features of the Georgian style, including its two chimneys and the way its rooms are arranged inside. Caleb Thompson bought the house in 1803 and built wagons, carriages, and coffins in his shop on the property. His granddaughter, Fannie Ives Schember, leased the house to the Wallingford Historical Society in 1919 and later left it to the Society in her will. Owned by the Society since 1932, today the house is a museum.

Thankful Arnold House (1794)

The Thankful Arnold House, on Hayden Hill Road in Haddam, was built in three stages between 1794 and 1810. The first section, built in 1794-1795 by Linus Parmalee, was a small house, with a shop on the first floor. The mortgaged house was foreclosed in 1797 and sold to Joseph Arnold, a merchant who had his shop in the basement. In 1800, the second section was built adding two bays to the western end of the house. The third section to be added, in 1810, was an extension to the rear, making the gambrel-roofed house have a saltbox profile. The two-story ell on the west side, which was originally a separate mid-eighteenth century building, was also added at this time. Joseph Arnold died in 1823 and his widow, Thankful Clark Arnold, continued to live in the house, which was known as the Widow Arnold House, until her death in 1849. It was occupied by Arnold descendants until it was purchased in 1963 by one who lived in Texas, Isaac Arnold, who died in 1973, leaving the house to the Haddam Historical Society. By that time, the house had already been restored to its 1810 appearance and opened to the public as a museum in 1965.

Squire Beach House (1762)

The Squire Beach House, on South Main Street in Cheshire, was built by Samuel Beach, a lawyer and prominent citizen who was a leader in establishing Cheshire as a seperate town from Wallingford. His son, Burrage Beach, was a lawyer and a director of the Farmington Canal. The house, which resembles the Foote House across the street, originally faced South Main. In 1986, the house became a restaurant and was moved and turned so that its gable end now faces the street.

The Russell Cooke House (1801)

The Russell Cooke House, on South Main Street in Cheshire, was built in 1801 and was originally both a residence and shop. When the builder, Russell Cooke, left for Ohio in 1805, others ran the shop, which was converted into a tavern in 1850 by William Horton. Later still, it was a hotel and a school. Today it is used as a law office. The gambrel-roofed building has a traditional colonial form, but with applied Federal-style details.

Samuel A. Foot House (1767)

The Foote House, on South Main Street in Cheshire, was built in 1767 for Rev. John Foot (d. 1813), the second minister of the town’s First Congregational Church. John Foot‘s son, Samuel Augustus Foot, was born in the house in 1780. Samuel A. Foot(e), who studied at Yale and with Tapping Reeve in Litchfield, went on to become a US Representative, Senator and Governor of Connecticut. Foot continued to live in the 1767 house, adding a Greek Revival portico to the entryway in the 1830s. Gov. Foote’s son, Andrew Hull Foote, was an admiral in the US Navy during the Civil War.

The Abijah Beach Tavern (1814)

Different sources indicate two different dates for the construction of the Abijah Beach Tavern in Cheshire: 1750 and 1814. The Federal style of the building is consistent with the latter date. The Beach Tavern, located just south of the Cheshire Green, was at the center of town life in the early nineteenth century: in addition to serving as an tavern, inn and store, it was also used for town meetings and court sessions before a town hall was built in 1867. The top floor of the Beach Tavern has a large ballroom. The Tavern is named for its first owner, Abijah Beach, who died in 1821. For a time it was known as the Benjamin Franklin Inn and became a private residence in 1852.

Rev. James Dana House (1760)

The Rev. James Dana House was built around 1760. Rev. Dana was Pastor of Wallingford’s First Congregational Church during the period of the Revolutionary War. When Rev. Dana arrived from Cambridge, MA to become the church’s minister in 1758, he was soon at the center of what would be called the “Wallingford Controversy.” Dana was supported by those called “Old Lights,” who opposed the “New Light” evangelical preachers of the Great Awakening. As explained by Charles Henry Stanley Davis, in his History of Wallingford (1870), “Dr. Dana was understood to be of the then liberal school of Boston and that region, and of that party which had opposed the revival of religion; his settlement in so large and important a church, would be a triumph of that party, which had already become a minority in the county and in the colony; and therefore the new light men were determined by all means to prevent the ordination, and when the thing was done to undo it if possible.”

According to Gideon Hiram Hollister’s History of Connecticut, Vol. 1 (1858), Dana was settled as minister in Wallingford, “in opposition to a large proportion of the members of the society. It was contended by his opponents that he was not orthodox in sentiment; that he had evaded the enquiries of the committee as to his views on important doctrinal points, and finally replied impertinently; and, after his alleged ordination, it was claimed that the ordination was not valid.”

The Congregational consociations of New Haven and southern Hartford counties joined to declare a sentence of non-Communion against Dana and the Wallingford church. As George Punchard wrote, in his History of Congregationalism, Vol. 5 (1881), the controversy, “resulted in a division of the church, and the formation of a new one by the disaffected brethren, some of whom were among the most influential men of the town. From Wallingford the controversy spread all over the colony, and continued for years, alienating brethren and dividing churches.” Some years later, in 1772, a kind of amnesty was eventually declared for Dana and his church and some of his old opponents were reconciled with him. An example of one of Rev. Dana’s sermons is one he gave on The African Slave Trade in 1791. Dana left Wallingford in 1789 and lived in New Haven until his death in 1812.