Rochambeau

Elm Tree Inn (1655)

The earliest section of what later on became the Elm Tree Inn in Farmington was the 1655 house of William Lewis, an original settler of the town. His son built a new and larger structure, around the old house, and the enlarged building became a tavern and inn. By the mid-eighteenth century, it was operated by Phineas Lewis. Washington dined at the tavern, while on his way to Hartford, in 1780 and again, while on his way to Wethersfield, in 1781. The French general Rochambeau may have also stayed there with his officers when he was passing through Connecticut with his army in 1781. The facade of the building was later updated in the Georgian style and the tavern came to be known as the Elm Tree Inn, after the elm trees on the property, planted in the 1760s. The Inn continued to be popular into the twentieth century as it was a stop on the trolley line to Hartford. Mark Twain frequently dined there while he lived in Hartford, as did the cast and crew filming Way Down East with Lillian Gish in 1919. The exterior of the Inn was once surrounded by a long verandah, which has since been removed. The building is now subdivided into condominiums.

First Church of Christ, Wethersfield (1761)

Built in Wethersfield in 1761-1764, the First Church of Christ was the town’s third Meeting House. Designed in the Georgian style, it is a rare survival of a brick colonial meeting house. The steeple was most likely modeled on that of an Episcopal church, Trinity Church in Newport, R.I., which was in turn modeled on Christ Church in Boston. George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau attended services here on May 20, 1781, during the period they were holding their important meetings in the nearby Webb House. In 1774, John Adams, who was visiting Silas Deane, wrote in his diary:

“We went up the steeple of Wethersfield meeting-house, from whence is the most grand and beautiful prospect in the world, at least that I ever saw.”

Edward Robbins House (1861)

Built in 1861, on Main Street in Wethersfield, for Edward Robbins, who owned the Johnson & Robbins seed company. Charles C. Hart was connected to this company for fourteen years before he began his own business in the 1892. As the Chas. C. Hart Seed Co. grew, it eventually moved into the old offices and warehouses of the Johnson & Hart Company, and remains in the same location today, currently in a 1955 brick complex just south of the Robbins House.

As a plaque in front of the house indicates, it stands at the former site of Nathaniel Stillman’s Tavern. When Washington had his famous conference with the Comte de Rochambeau, just down the street in the Webb House, in May of 1781, the Stillman Tavern housed the French staff.

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Joseph Webb House (1752)

Built on Main Street in Wethersfield in 1752 for the wealthy merchant, Joseph Webb. This gambrel roofed house is typical of the Georgian mansions built for the wealthy in the mid-eighteenth century. During the Revolutionary War, in May 1781, George Washington made this house his headquarters for several days when he met here with the Comte de Rochambeau. The two generals planned the beginning of the campaign that would end five months later with the victory at Yorktown. Originally opened to the public by Wallace Nutting in 1916, it is currently administered by the National Society of the Colonial Dames as part of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum.

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