The Beebe-Phillips House is an 1838 farmhouse, located in Waterford. The house was moved to Historic Jordan Green in 1974 and is one of several historic buildings on the Green which constitute a museum operated by the Waterford Historical Society.
John Rider was a Danbury carpenter, who also served as a state militia captain during the Revolutionary War. The house of John and his wife Mary was built in 1785 and was occupied by members of the Rider family until 1925. In 1941, the house was saved from potential destruction through the action of citizens, who formed the Danbury Historical Society and Arts Center. This organization merged, in 1947, with the Scott Fanton Museum to form the Danbury Museum and Historical Society. The Rider House on Main Street is today a museum and has been joined by other historic structures, which together form the Museum’s main campus.
The oldest house in Meriden is the Solomon Goffe House on North Colony Street. As explained in A Century of Meriden (1906):
We know nothing about Mr. Goffe except that he lived here ten years, married a Wallingford girl. Mary Doolitlle, and the birth of one child is recorded. In 1721 he sold the place to Thomas Andrews, of Wallingford, who, apparently, lived there until 1729, when he sold it to Jonathan Collins, of Middletown. The old house was enlarged, perhaps soon after Mr. Collins bought it, for the addition looks as old as the rest, but that there has been an addition is plain to be seen. The dormer windows in the old gambrel roof are probably a later addition, and there have been apparently some changes in the interior. That the house is the one built by Solomon Goffe will be apparent to any one who will examine the old rafters and the huge floor beams. The chimneys in the cellar are enormous and the stones were cemented with clay mixed with straw as were the foundation walls, a sure sign of an early house; another indication of age is the split laths, used in very early houses. The Collins family continued to own the house until 1796 when a son, Jonathan, Jr., sold it to Samuel Taylor of Chatham. Mr. Taylor doubtless lived in it until 1806 when he sold it to his son-in-law, Partrick Clark.
Now owned by the City of Meriden, the house is a museum, open by appointment.
A Greek Revival house with an elaborate window in its front gable, the Smith-Harris House in East Lyme was most likely built in 1845 by John Clark for Thomas Avery. The house was later occupied by Avery’s son, William, and after his death, it was sold to William H. H. Smith, who used it as a summer home. In 1921, he sold it to his brother and nephew, Herman Smith and Frank Harris, who had married two sisters. After the deaths of their husbands, the sisters continued to reside in the house, until they relocated to a nursing home. The house was left vacant and was deteriorating when a group of citizens urged the town to save and restore the house. A restoration committee was appointed in 1974 and the restored house opened as East Lyme’s Town Museum in 1976.
After teaching at the schoolhouse in East Haddam, Nathan Hale went on to become the schoolmaster at the Union School in New London, teaching there from 1774 until the Revolutionary War began in 1775. Built in 1773, the gambrel-roofed school building was originally located on State Street, was moved to Union and Golden streets in 1830 to serve as a private home and was purchased in 1890 by the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Under their guardianship, the building has been moved several additional times: first to the burial ground on Huntington Street, then, in 1966, to to Crystal Avenue and in 1975 to a spot next to City Hall. In 1988, the town paid to move the school to the Parade, at the foot of State Street. For some time, it has been used as a Visitor Center and museum. The schoolhouse has just been moved a sixth time, to a new plaza adjacent to the Water Street parking garage.
This Memorial Day, we honor the Connecticut patriot and hero of the Revolutionary War, Nathan Hale. The Nathan Hale Schoolhouse, in East Haddam is a one room school, built in 1750. After his graduation from Yale, Hale taught here as schoolmaster for the Winter session, 1773-1774. The building was later moved from Goodspeed Plaza (a location now marked by a bust of Hale) to serve as a house and around 1900 was moved again to its present site on a hill, overlooking the Connecticut River. It is now a museum, operated by the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Nathan Hale moved on from East Haddam to teach at the Nathan Hale Schoolhouse in New London, where he was working when he joined the Continental Army. He was captured and hanged by the British as a spy on September 22, 1776.
Mystic Seaport is a living history maritime museum, which recreates a nineteenth century seaport. One of the museum buildings is an exact replica of the current lighthouse at Brant Point on Nantucket. The first lighthouse at Brant Point was built in 1746 and has been followed by many successive structures over the years. The present light, which is the lowest above sea level in New England, was built in 1901. The Mystic Seaport replica lighthouse was built in 1966. Inside, it currently displays a multimedia exhibition about lighthouses, called Sentinels of the Sea (video). (more…)
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