Benjamin Stiles House (1787)

At 1030 Main Street North, across from the “King’s Land” in Southbury, is the stately Georgian-style Benjamin Stiles House, built around 1787. Stiles was the son of Benjamin Stiles, Sr. who, according to the 1892 History of New Haven County, Vol. II,

was probably the first attorney in the town, where he was born in 1720. He graduated from Yale in 1740, studied law and was successful in his profession. His son, Benjamin Stiles, Jr., born in Southbury in 1756, also graduated from Yale at the age of 20 and became a lawyer. He had a large practice until his death in 1817.

The hip-roofed Benjamin Stiles House, occupied by the family until 1920, is said to have been designed by a French engineer in Rochambeau’s army, utilizing the metric system. The building is therefore often referred to as the Benjamin Stiles Metric House. In the early twentieth century, Southbury resident, photographer and antiquarian Wallace Nutting used the house in a number of his photographs.

Joseph Webb House (1752)

webbhouse.JPG

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.

(more…)