Rev. Samuel Street House (1673)

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On South Main Street in Wallingford is the home of Reverend Samuel Street, built in 1673. Samuel Street was the town’s first minister and one of its first settlers, being one of the original 39 signers of the 1668 Wallingford Agreement, or original covenant of the first Wallingford planters. Rev. Street‘s daughter, Mary, married John Hall. Their son, Lyman Hall, Street‘s great-grandson, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Rev. Street, who died at age 82 in 1717, served as minister for 45 years.

Weed-Enders House (1790)

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One of the four historic properties owned by the Salmon Brook Historical Society is the Weed-Enders House. The house was originally constructed in 1790, six miles to the west of its present location, by Moses Weed. It was then owned by members of the Weed family and then other families, until it was acquired in 1924 by John Enders, who used it as a hunting lodge. In 1974, after the Enders State Forest was established, the house was moved to be adjacent to the Abijah Rowe House. It is now part of the Samon Brook Historical Society’s museum.

Nehemiah Royce House (1672)

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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.

Hollister-Tryon House (1736)

Jeremiah Hollister built a saltbox house on the west side of Main Street in South Glastonbury in 1736. In 1739, he sold the house to Joseph Tryon. An addition to the house (since removed) served as a Post Office in the nineteenth century. A porch, added in the early twentieth century, was also removed when the house was remodeled in 1976. Since then, the house, which is adjacent to a strip mall, has been used for businesses. (more…)

Rev. Richard Mansfield House (1700)

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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,

The Hurd House (1660)

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The Hurd House in Woodbury is a combination of what were originally two smaller houses. The older, north section, dates to around 1680 and was the home of John Hurd, who became the town’s miller in 1681. The south section, which may have originally been the home of Hurd’s son, was added to the older structure in 1718, to increase the overall size of the house. The two original houses were of the end-chimney type, while the structure resulting from the combination has a central chimney. By 1779, a lean-to was added, making the house a saltbox, although this was later removed. In 1967, the house was acquired by the Old Woodbury Historical Society.

A new feature is being launched today at Historic Buildings of Connecticut. I plan to do a series of articles discussing some of the different architectural styles found in Connecticut. I will be using buildings which have appeared on this site as examples, sometimes with different photos than those which have appeared here before. The first of these articles is on Colonial Houses, which can be found at the url address:
https://historicbuildingsct.com/?page_id=502. This and later articles to come will be indexed on the Architecture page (also listed in the bar above the site banner), so please check there for future additions!