The Justin Hobart House (1765)

Built in 1765 by a local cabinetmaker on Beach Road in Fairfield, the Justin Hobart House is one of the few structures to survive the burning of the town by the British in 1779. After the burning, church meetings and court sessions were held in the house until a new meeting house was completed in 1785. The house has had additions over the years, including the current entry portico. A new wing was added to the rear of the house in 1890 and a sun room extension around the mid-twentieth century. During World War One, the house served as the headquarters of the Fairfield Chapter of the American Red Cross.Happy Thanksgiving from Historic Buildings of Connecticut!

The Isaac Tucker House (1766)

The Isaac Tucker House is one of only a few to have survived the burning of Fairfield by British forces on July 7, 1779. The house was built in 1766, two years after Tucker married Mary Wakeman in 1764. Tradition holds that a servant, hiding upstairs, put out the flames and saved the house from destruction. There are still burn marks inside from the attempted torching. The house was later owned by Edmund Hobart, who served as postmaster in Fairfield in the mid-nineteenth century.

Moorlands (1836)

Moorlands is the name of the circa 1836 house that was the Fairfield home of Henry Sheaff Glover, who also resided in New York City. In later years, after their father’s death, Dawson Coleman Glover, married Elizabeth Fowler (1913) and Harriet Coleman Glover married Gardner Willard Millett (1914). Their brother, John Le Roy Gover, attended Yale in 1914-1916. The house, at 290 Beach Road, was built on the site of the Buckley Tavern, built around 1740-1750. According to Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, vol. I (1851), when the British forces of Major General William Tryon landed and burned Fairfield in 1779, the Buckley Tavern was saved:

Tryon made it his head-quarters. The naval officer who had charge of the British ships, and piloted them to Fairfield, was Mrs. Buckley’s brother, and he had requested Tryon to spare the house of his sister. Tryon acquiesced, and, feeling his indebtedness to her brother, the general informed Mrs. Buckley that if there was any other house she wished to save she should be gratified. After the enemy left, the enraged militia, under Captain Sturges, placed a field piece in front of the dwelling, and then sent Mrs. Buckley word that she might have two hours to clear the house, and leave it, or they would blow her to atoms. She found means to communicate a notice of her situation to General Silliman, who was about two miles distant. He immediately went to the town, and found one hundred and fifty men at the cannon. By threats and persuasion he induced them to withdraw. The next day Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, with his regiment, arrived from White Plains, and, encamping on the smoking ruins, made Tryon’s quarters his own

Observing the Buckley House not long before it was replaced, John Warner Barber wrote in his Connecticut Historical Collections (1836) that:

At the time of the invasion of the British, a 24 pound shot which was fired from Black Rock, entered the chimney. In the entrance at the door, are still to be seen the marks of twenty seven bullets, on the stair way. The heat was so great during the conflagration, that all the window glass in front of this house were broken.

Daniel Basset House (1775)

The Daniel Basset House, north of the Green in Monroe, was built in 1775. The house has large second-floor ballroom where, according to local tradition, a ball was held on June 30, 1781, to welcome the Hussars of the French mounted Legion led by the Duc De Lauzon (pdf). Lauzun’s Legion, which was protecting the southern flank of the main French army under the Comte de Rochambeau, was camped just south of the village center of New Stratford (now Monroe). The French would soon march to fight in the Siege of Yorktown. The Basset House, located near Masuk High School, maintains much of its historic appearance, with early nineteenth-century decoration around the entrance.

Josiah Bronson House (1738)

The oldest surviving house in Middlebury was built by Josiah Bronson on Breakneck Hill Road in 1738. The house also served as a tavern and hosted a number of French officers during the Revolutionary War: first in 1781 when Rochambeau’s French army encamped in Middlebury from June 27 to July 1, on its way to the Siege of Yorktown, and again from October 26-28, 1782, during their return journey. One of the officers to stay in the tavern was the Baron de Viomenil, who was second in command to General Rochambeau during the Yorktown Campaign. At these times, Rochambeau himself most likely stayed with Captain Isaac Bronson, Josiah’s father, further down the hill. The Josiah Bronson House was acquired in 1940 by Lawrence M. and Esther Duryee, who restored it.

The Maj. Peter Curtis House (1786)

Maj. Peter Curtis was a blacksmith in Farmington who served as an officer in the army at every battle in which George Washington commanded during the Revolutionary War. In 1769 he had purchased the property formerly owned by Thomas Norton, replacing the earlier house, at the corner of Farmington Avenue and High Street, with his new house, built by Judah Woodruff in 1786. Curtis later served as the first keeper, or warden, of Newgate Prison in East Granby, from 1790 to 1796. His family occupied the house until 1822, when it was sold to William Whitman, who opened it as a tavern, with a ballroom on the second floor. After his death in 1876, the tavern was run by his son Charles L. Whitman, of whom it was said, as related in Farmington, Connecticut, the Village of Beautiful Homes (1906),

He and his father for many years kept a tavern in Farmington. in the days when there was much teaming through this town. The place was famous in all the region, partly on account of Mrs. Whitman’s excellent pies and cake. When one’s ancestors have been among those who serve the public with care and courtesy, it seems to become second nature in the descendants to be very polite. This might explain Mr. Whitman’s genial manners, but I am inclined to believe it was more a special goodness of heart. He was also for many years one of the directors of the bank and an appraiser.

In the 1920s, rooms in the house were rented to two women for use as a tea room and antiques business. In 1938, the house was acquired by Dr. Walls Bunnell, who moved it to its present location at 4 High Street. Where the Whitman Tavern had originally stood, Dr. Bunnell created the shopping complex known as Brick Walk Lane, composed of various historic Farmington buildings he preserved by having them moved to the site.

Rose Farm House, Bolton (1725)

In June of 1781, the army of the French general, the comte de Rochambeau, on its way to join George Washington and fight in the Battle of Yorktown, camped at what was later called Rose Farm in Bolton. Between June 21 and 25, 1781, four regiments of the French soldiers spent one night each at the camp, which was the fifth French army encampment of their journey from Newport, Rhode Island to Yorktown, Virginia. The farm was part of the land originally owned by the town’s first minister, Reverend Thomas White and at the time of the Revolutionary War, the property, called the Minister’s Farm, was owned by Reverend George Colton, who was Bolton’s minister from 1764 to 1817. The farm still has numerous stone walls, built by early settlers who initially cleared the land. Many of these walls were noted on a map made by Rochambeau’s engineer. The minister’s house, originally built in 1725 by Rev. White and where Rev. Colton entertained Rochambeau in 1781, has been significantly altered. Once believed to have been replaced by a new Greek Revival-style house, built around 1840 by Reverend James Ely, it is now thought that the core of the later house is the original colonial structure, much altered and added to in later years . The farm was owned by the Rose family in the twentieth century. It was saved from the building of an expressway in 1994 and in 2000, after a campaign to save the land from development, it was purchased by the town of Bolton and is now the Bolton Heritage Farm.