The Nehemiah Hubbard House (1744)

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Across from the Harriet Cooper Lane House in Middletown is the Nehemiah Hubbard House, a center-chimney Colonial saltbox, built in 1744. Nehemiah Hubbard, Jr., who was born in 1752 and was a later owner of the house, was a fourth-generation descendant of early settlers of Middletown. A prominent merchant, he served as Deputy Quartermaster for Middletown during the Revolutionary War and was the first president of the Middletown Bank. He was also the original land-owner in what would become Hubbard, Ohio. Hubbard used his Middletown house and extensive property, which was away from the center of town, for his farming operations and it remained in his family into the twentieth century. For a time, Thomas McDonough Russell, Sr. lived in the house and in 1916, it was acquired by Colonel Clarence Wadsworth. Restored in 1929, the house remained in the Wadsworth family until 1952. Still a private home, the property has a garden established in 1956.

Old Buckingham House (1671)

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The owners of the Joseph Buckingham House, long known as the Old Buckingham House, located on Main Street in Old Saybrook, believe the house was built in the late seventeenth century. The plaque on the front has the date of 1671. It is a saltbox house with later additions. It was once the home of Rev. Thomas Buckingham, one of Yale’s original founders and trustees, and it is believed to be the site of the first Yale commencement in 1702.

Thomas Lee House (1660)

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Built around 1660, the Thomas Lee House in Niantic is one of Connecticut’s oldest wood frame post-Medieval English houses. The original structure consisted of a single-room ground floor with a chamber above. This was expanded, after 1700, with the addition of a West Parlor and Chamber. The lean-to, which makes the house a saltbox, was added about 1765. The Lee family owned the house for two hundred years, until it was sold to a local farmer who used it as a barn and chicken coop. The farmer planned to tear the house down, but in 1914, it was saved by the East Lyme Historical Society, with help from the Connecticut Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of Colonial Dames, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and Lee family descendants. The house was restored under the direction of Norman Morrison Isham, an architectural historian and author of Early Connecticut Houses (1900). It opened to the public in 1915 as a historic house museum, operated by the East Lyme Historical Society.

The Joshua Hempsted House (1678)

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Joshua Hempsted is a well-known citizen of colonial New London because he kept a detailed diary for nearly fifty years, from 1711 until his death in 1758. Hempsted was a farmer, surveyor, carpenter, gravestone carver and local official who was born and lived in a house at 11 Hempstead Street, which had been built by his grandfather in 1678. Joshua added the east section of the house in 1728. It is New London’s oldest surviving house and was occupied by the Hempsted family until 1937. With the death of Anna Hempstead Branch, the house was left to the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society, which restored the house in 1956. Today, along with the adjacent house of Joshua Hempsted’s nephew, Nathaniel Hempsted, the Hempsted Houses are a Connecticut Landmarks site open to the public.

The Moses Andrews Homestead (1760)

Moses Andrews Homestead

The Moses Andrews Homestead, on West Main Street in Meriden, was built around 1760 by Sgt. Moses Andrews‘s father, Samuel Andrews III. Moses was a Tory and during the Revolutionary War, the house was used as the first Episcopal place of worship in Meriden, with Andrews later acting as Lay Reader. The house remained in the family until 1864 and was then used for various purposes over the years, including as a school. In 1933, the house was restored, as a W.P.A project, to become a school and museum. When the school board ceased to use the property, it again became a museum organized by the Andrews Homestead Committee (formed in 1940). The house was again restored in 1954 and is now operated by the Meriden Historical Society as a museum. (more…)

Thankful Arnold House (1794)

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The Thankful Arnold House, on Hayden Hill Road in Haddam, was built in three stages between 1794 and 1810. The first section, built in 1794-1795 by Linus Parmalee, was a small house, with a shop on the first floor. The mortgaged house was foreclosed in 1797 and sold to Joseph Arnold, a merchant who had his shop in the basement. In 1800, the second section was built adding two bays to the western end of the house. The third section to be added, in 1810, was an extension to the rear, making the gambrel-roofed house have a saltbox profile. The two-story ell on the west side, which was originally a separate mid-eighteenth century building, was also added at this time. Joseph Arnold died in 1823 and his widow, Thankful Clark Arnold, continued to live in the house, which was known as the Widow Arnold House, until her death in 1849. It was occupied by Arnold descendants until it was purchased in 1963 by one who lived in Texas, Isaac Arnold, who died in 1973, leaving the house to the Haddam Historical Society. By that time, the house had already been restored to its 1810 appearance and opened to the public as a museum in 1965.