William Parker House (1646)

Parker House, Old Saybrook

The sign on the Parker House at 680 Middlesex Turnpike in Old Saybrook gives it the date of 1646. The National Register of Historic Places nomination for the house gives a date of 1679. In either case, it is one of the oldest houses in Connecticut. It was built by William Parker (1645-1725). Born in Hartford, Parker settled in Saybrook. As described in Family Records: Parker-Pond-Peck (1892), by Edwin Pond Parker:

Dea. William Parker was a leading citizen, and very prominent in church and state. He is said to have represented Saybrook as Deputy to the General Court in more sessions than any other person, excepting only Robert Chapman. He was Sergeant in Train-band as early as 1672, and in 1678-9 the town voted him five acres of land for services “out of the town” in the Indian wars. He was elected Deacon before 1687, and probably continued in that office until his death. He was a lay member of the Saybrook Synod of 1705 that framed the “Saybrook Platform” for the churches of Connecticut.

The house descended in the same family into the 1960s. It is now a commercial property.

Jabez Bacon Store (1760)

Jabez Bacon Store

Jabez Bacon was one of the wealthiest merchants in Connecticut in the eighteenth century. On Hollow Road in Woodbury, next to where his grand residence still stands, Bacon constructed a gambrel-roofed store around 1760. In the 1830s the house and store were acquired by Daniel Curtiss, a successful businessman and entrepreneur. The store was converted into residence around 1933 by Hobart Upjohn. (more…)

Bushnell-Dickinson House (1790)

Bushnell-Dickinson House

At 170 Old Post Road in Old Saybrook is a gambrel-roofed house built c. 1790 (before 1803) by Phineas Bushnell (1718-1803), shortly after he married his second wife, Hepsibah Lewis of Killingworth, in 1789. The house passed to his son Samuel Bushnell (1748-1828), who had married Hepzibah Pratt in 1775. Their daughter, Hepzibah (1776-1818), married Samuel Dickinson (1774-1861) in 1796. The house was later owned by their son, John Seabury Dickinson (1807-1879) and then by his son, John S. Dickinson (1846-1922), who served as a Town Selectman, was president of the Saybrook Musical and Dramatic Club and was a founder and first president of a literary society known as the Crackers and Cheese Club. The house remained in the Dickinson family until 1934. Renovated in 1958, the house was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Captain William Johnson House (1790)

Captain Johnson House

The Gambrel-roofed cape-style house at 29 Joshuatown Road at Hamburg Bridge in Lyme is architecturally distinguished. It is the only surviving example in the state of a distinctive type of chimney vaulting: an arched passage through a split chimney, with an elaborate doorway surround at the back of the passage. The house was built c. 1790-1803 by Captain William Johnson. He was a mason and the second floor has a large arch-ceilinged room that was used as a Masonic Hall. Captain Johnson died in 1818 and widow Mitty soon sold the house, although she returned to Hamburg Bridge in 1848 and bought another house on Joshuatown Road.

Remember Baker House (1733)

Baker House, Sentry Hill Rd., Roxbury

Ethan Allen’s parents were married in the house at 112 Sentry Hill Road in Roxbury. The house was built by John Baker around 1733. John’s daughter Mary Baker married Joseph Allen in 1736 or 1737. Their son, Ethan Allen, was born in Litchfield in 1737 or 1738. John’s son, Remember Baker, married Tamar Warner. He was killed in a hunting accident. Remember Baker, Jr. (1737-1775) was only three years old at time. He grew up in the house and nearby lived his cousins, Ethan Allen and Seth Warner. He later joined them in Vermont as one of the Green Mountain Boys who first battled the forces of New York State and then joined the Revolution and captured Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775. Described by another cousin, Norman Hurlbut, as a great frontiersman, a tough, redheaded, freckle-faced young giant, Remember Baker was more hot headed than Allen or Warner. Later in 1775 he left Ticonderoga on a scouting expedition and was killed on August 22 by two Indians who had taken his boat. They cut off his head and placed it on a pole and carried it to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. British officers there bought the head and buried it. The Baker family occupied the house in Roxbury until 1796. A later owner of the house was Treat Davidson, a prominent citizen of Roxbury who served as a Selectman and owned a gristmill.