Revolutionary War - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Nehemiah Royce House (1672)

The oldest house in Wallingford is the Nehemiah Royce House on North Main Street. Nehemiah Royce (who died in 1706) and his first wife Hannah, were among the first settlers of Wallingford. Royce‘s saltbox house was built in 1672. The house is also known as the Washington Elm House because it used to be next to the Washington Elm: in 1775, when George Washington was on his way to take command of the Continental Army in Massachusetts, he stopped in Wallingford to purchase gunpowder and addressed the people of the town in front of the house near the Elm. The house was moved to its present location in 1924. For a time it was a museum and then was used as a residence by Choate Rosemary Hall, until donated to the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust in the 1990s.

Giles Hall House (1760)

The Giles Hall House, built in 1760, is on South Elm Street in Wallingford. The house is near the site of the birthplace of Giles Hall‘s brother, Lyman Hall. After graduating from Yale, Lyman Hall became a physician in South Carolina and later settled in Georgia. He was a supporter of the Revolution and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence for the State of Georgia.

Welles-Williams House (1712)

In 1711, Reverend Samuel Welles became the second pastor of the Congregational Church in Lebanon. In 1712, he built a house on what is now route 87, across from where William A. Buckingham Birthplace House would be built in 1804. According to a biography of Jonathan Trumbull, the governor of Connecticut who as a boy had been tutored by Welles, “If there were any exceptions to the rule of social equality which existed in the town at this time, one exception might be found in the case of this same Reverend Samuel Welles, whose aristocratic Boston connections had enabled him to build the handsomest house in Lebanon.” In 1719, Rev. Welles had married Hannah Arnold, whose family owned extensive property in Boston. Her parents wanted the couple to move to Boston, so Welles left Lebanon in 1722, looking after his wife’s property after her parents’ deaths and, according to Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College (1885), in Boston, “he accumulated more wealth, becoming one of the richest men of the town, and highly respected.” On leaving Lebanon, Welles sold his house to his successor as pastor, the Rev. Solomon Williams, son of the Rev. William Williams of Hatfield. Rev. Solomon Williams’ son, William Williams, was born in the house in 1731 and later went on to become a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another son of Rev. Williams was Ezekiel Williams, who moved to Wethersfield and was a merchant and sheriff of Hartford County during the Revolutionary War. Their former home came to be owned by David S. Woodworth. In 1857, Charles Lyman Pitcher began working for Woodworth, eventually gaining possession of the farm after Woodworth’s death. Pitcher served in the Civil War and later the farm was managed by his two sons after his retirement.

General David Humphreys House (1698)

Located across from the Old Episcopal Burying Ground, on Elm Street in Ansonia, is the house where General David Humphreys was born in 1752. The house was built in 1698 to be the home of the new Congregational Minister of the Town of Derby (Ansonia was then part of Derby). It was first occupied by the Reverend John James, who sold the house in 1706 to the Reverend Joseph Moss. In 1735, the Reverend Daniel Humphreys bought the house from Joseph Moss’s widow, Abigail Moss. At some point in the 1730s, the house was enlarged to roughly its current size. Humphreys was a Congregational minister, but lived across the street from Derby’s Episcopal church, with its cemetery. Later, when Derby’s second Episcopal Church was built down the street to replace the original smaller building, the old church building was moved across Elm Street and attached to the Humphreys House for use as a summer kitchen. Rev. Humphreys died in 1787. His son, David Humphreys, never owned the house, but visited it as his family’s ancestral homestead. During the Revolutionary War, David Humphreys served as an aide-de-camp and close adviser to George Washington and, after the Battle of Yorktown, he was honored by receiving the surrendered British standards and presenting them to Congress. After the War, Humphreys served as a diplomat in Europe and General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the Polish Revolutionary hero, visited him at the house on Elm Street. Returning from Spain, Humphreys brought back with him America’s first Merino sheep, going on to found the Humphreysville (now Seymour), where wool textiles were manufactured. David Humphreys was also a poet and a member of the literary group known as the “Hartford Wits.” His writings were collected in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys (1804).

The house was not owned by David Humphreys, but by his brother Elijah, who had married Anna Mansfield, the daughter of the Episcopal minister, Richard Mansfield. Elijah, who died at sea, willed the house to his son, Elijah, Jr., who sold it to his sister, Betsey, and her husband, Thomas Vose, a sea captain and business partner of David Humphreys. The house had other owners over the years, eventually being converted into three apartments. Preserved by the Humphreys House Association, in 1961 the house was turned over to the Derby Historical Society. Restored beginning in 1976, it was first opened to the public as a museum in 1980.

Rev. Richard Mansfield House (1700)

This week we’ll be looking at some historic buildings in the Lower Naugatuck River Valley towns of Derby and Ansonia. Reverend Richard Mansfield was the first clergyman of the Church of England to reside in Derby. Although his father was a deacon in the Congregational Church, Mansfield had converted to Anglicanism after studying at Yale and was ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself in England. Assigned to Derby in 1748, Rev. Mansfield would serve for 72 years, the longest recorded rectorship in the United States. In Derby, Rev. Mansfield lived in a saltbox house on what is today Jewett Street in Ansonia (which later separated from Derby). The house had been built around 1700 and was purchased the the Episcopal Church in 1748 as a home for its rector, thus becoming an Episcopal Glebe House Rectory. His tenure was not without serious difficulties, however, because during the Revolutionary War, the loyalist Rev. Mansfield was forced to flee to Long Island. Although he returned to his old rectorship after the war, his wife Anna and infant daughter had died during his absence. During Rev. Mansfield’s tenure in Derby, the Episcopal Church had two successive buildings. The first church was erected on Elm Street (in what is now Ansonia) in 1737. Itinerant Anglican priests had preached there until Rev. Mansfield arrived in 1748. A new church was completed on Derby Avenue in 1799, where Rev. Mansfield served until his death in 1820. He is buried in the Episcopal cemetery on Elm Street, his monument marking where the first Episcopal church’s alter had been when it stood at that location. In 1926, the Mansfield House was moved across Jewett Street to make way for St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church and School. Preserved by the Mansfield House Association, the building was given to the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society. Later, in 1960, the A&L gave the house to the Derby Historical Society.

Update: Last year the house acquired a new owner, who has posted about the house on his blog. Here’s a great article about the restoration of the house. Another post is about the south garret, while others discuss the history of the house, a Bible once owned by Rev. Richard Mansfield and thermal imaging,

Gardner Mills House (1815)

Gardner Mills built his house at 225 Cherry Brook Road in Canton around 1815 on the site where his father, Amasa Mills, had built an earlier home. Amasa Mills had been a captain in the Continental Army and a colonel in the militia. In 1820, aged 85, he sought a veteran’s pension by testifying that he was unable to work as a blacksmith due to disabilities, lived alone in poverty and was dependent on others. Two neighbors contested this, saying he lived with his son, Gardner Mills, who had ample means to support his father and had received property from him. Amasa argued that the house and farm had been deeded to his son in payment for the father’s debts which Gardner had paid. A heated conflict eventually developed which divided members of the family and the community. Eventually, in 1821, congressman Elisha Phelps defended Amasa Mills’s version of the situation, but Amasa Mills died before receiving a pension. Gardener Mills, Sr. passed the house to his son, Gardner Mills, Jr.

The house was later acquired by Alfred F. Humphrey, whose wife was the daughter of Dr. Chauncey Griswold, inventor of a product called “Griswold’s Salve.” Griswold later came to live with his daughter and after he died, Albert Humphrey continued the business, which was eventually sold to the Sisson Drug Co. of Hartford. Members of the Humphrey family continued to own the house and in 1906, Sylvester Barbour, visiting Canton, met, among others (as related in his Reminiscences of 1908), “Mrs. Alfred F. Humphrey, daughter of that eminently good man, Dr. Chauncey G. Griswold, whose salve has been such a boon to society.” Barbour noted that Mrs. Humphrey was “nearly as sprightly as when I first knew her sixty years ago.” (more…)

Samuel Huntington House (1785)

Samuel Huntington, born in Scotland, CT, had a notable career during the Revolutionary War and after. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he also served as the last President of the Continental Congress (1779-1781) and the first “President of the United States of America in Congress Assembled” under the Articles of Confederation in 1781. He was later the Chief Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court (1784-1785) and Governor of Connecticut (1786-1796). Buried in the Old Norwichtown Cemetery, located behind his Norwich home, Huntington was re-interred in the Samuel Huntington Tomb in 2003. There has been an effort in Norwich to create a Huntington Presidential Library. Huntington’s house, on East Town Street, was built in 1783-1785 and has been extensively modified over the years, with later Greek Revival style additions.