Revolutionary War - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Oliver White Tavern (1743)

The Oliver White Tavern was built around 1741-1743 on East Street (now Brandy Street) in Bolton. Oliver White sold the house after it was built, although it continued to bear his name when it became a Tavern, between 1753 and 1764. During the Revolutionary War, Capt. Joel White owned the Tavern, which was situated near the farm where General Rochambeau’s French troops camped in June of 1781, during their march to the Battle of Yorktown. Some of Rochambeau’s officers stayed at the Tavern, while the general himself went to the Daniel White Tavern, nearby in Andover. The Oliver White Tavern continued in operation until around 1790.

Daniel White Tavern (1722)

Daniel White’s Tavern, on Hutchinson Road in Andover, was built as a house in 1722 and was opened as a tavern in 1773 by Daniel White, who was a Coventry selectman and an army captain during the Revolutionary War. Known as White’s Tavern at the Sign of the Black Horse, the house had two inner walls on the second floor which could be swung upwards to create an enlarged ballroom. The Tavern was a frequent stopping place for the comte de Rochambeau during the Revolutionary War. He stopped there in May 1781, on his way to and from his conference with Washington in Wethersfield. Later, in June of that year, when his army camped nearby in Bolton, on its way from Rhode Island to fight in the Battle of Yorktown (and again in November, when the army was returning), Rochambeau and several of his officers were guests at the Tavern. Rochambeau was there again in 1782, when he traveled to Newburgh, New York, for his final meeting with Washington.

William Hart House (1767)

Located next to the First Congregational Church in Old Saybrook is the 1767 house of General William Hart, which is now the headquarters of the Old Saybrook Historical Society. Hart was a merchant engaged in the West Indies trade with his brother, Joseph. During the Revolutionary War, he outfitted privateers and led the First Regiment of Connecticut Light Horse Militia to Danbury, when that town was raided by the Brittish under Brig. Gen. William Tryon in 1777.

Daniel Benton Homestead (1720)

The Daniel Benton Homestead in Tolland was built in 1720 and was home to members of the Benton family until 1932. In 1777, during the Revolutionary War, twenty-four Hessian officers, who had surrendered after the British defeat at Saratoga, were quartered in the house on their journey to Boston, from where they would be shipped back to Germany. Daniel Benton had three grandsons who fought in the war: two died as a result of imprisonment by the British while the third, Elisha Benton, returned home in late 1776, after his confinement on a prison ship, where he had contracted smallpox. Back home, he was nursed by Jemima Barrows, whom he had courted before the war. He died after a few weeks, and she followed shortly after, having contracted the disease during their time together. They were both buried on the property, but were not buried next to each other, as they had not married. The Daniel Benton Homestead is famous as a haunted house and numerous articles with ghost stories about the house have been written on many sites. The house was purchased in 1932 by Florrie Bishop Bowering, a WTIC radio personality, who lived there until she died in 1968. The next owners, Charles B. Goodstein and William A Shocket, donated the house the following year to the Tolland Historical Society to open as a museum.

Huntington Homestead (1700)

Built sometime in the period 1700-1722, the Huntington Homestead in Scotland was the birthplace and childhood home of Samuel Huntington, who went on to become a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, President of the Continental Congress from 1779 to 1781 and Governor of Connecticut. Huntington later lived in a house in Norwich. The Homestead was later owned by the Kimball family, who sold it to the Town of Scotland in 1994. The house was then acquired by The Governor Samuel Huntington Trust to be opened as a museum.

Also, Historic Buildings of Massachusetts now has a new blog theme!!!

Ebenezer Avery House (1750)

The Ebenezer Avery House, built around 1750, originally stood at the corner of Latham Street and Thames Street in Groton. On September 6, 1781, American soldiers, including Ebenezer Avery, who had been wounded at the Battle of Groton Heights, were being transported in a cart to become British prisoners. The rolling cart went out-of-control and collided with a tree. The wounded, in agony, were taken to the Ebenezer Avery House. The Averys were a prominent family of early settlers in Groton. Captain James Avery was the first of the family to settle in Groton in the seventeenth century. His son, also named James, occupied a house, built in 1671, known as the Hive of the Averys, which burned down in 1894. The Avery Memorial Association was formed the following year and erected a memorial at the site of the Hive. In 1971, Stanton Avery of California purchased the Ebenezer Avery House and donated it to the Association. The house was moved from its original location to the the grounds of Fort Griswold State Park, where today it is open to the public as a house museum.

Fort Trumbull (1852)

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.