War of 1812

Colonel Avery Morgan House (1824)

The Colonel Avery Morgan House, at 219 South Main Street in Colchester, was built around 1824. Col. Morgan, born in 1781, was originally from Groton. He was a carpenter, merchant and farmer, who also served in the War of 1812 in the defense of New London. In 1802, he married Jerusha Gardner. Their first two children were born in Groton (they also lived for a time in Bozrah) and the other five children were born in Colchester, which they moved to in 1807. They later moved to Hartford, where Col. Morgan died in 1860 and his widow in 1861. The Colonel Avery Morgan House in Colchester is now a branch of Liberty Bank.

George Jewett House (1803)

The Thomas Millard House is on Main Street in Essex. Millard carved ship’s figureheads and built several houses, including his own in 1803. In 1814, the house was sold to George Jewett, a lawyer and town clerk, who commanded the Potapoug Militia during the 1814 British raid on Essex.

Elkanah Cobb House (1769)

The Elkanah Cobb House, on Water Street in Stonington Borough, is one of the oldest in town. Built in 1760s, the Cobb House is a one-and-a-half story structure with a gambrel roof and unusual 9 over 6 sash windows. Cobb was the owner of the house at the time when Stonington was bombarded by British ships on August 19, 1814 during the War of 1812. According to The Homes of our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn., by Grace Denison Wheeler (1903), the house “stood in the thick of the fight near the [American] battery, and so has many scars received during the bombardment.” Benson J. Lossing visited Stonington in 1860 and mentions the house in his Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (1869).

The Capt. Amos Palmer House (1787)

The Capt. Amos Palmer House is located on Main Street in Stonington Borough. The house was built by Amos Palmer in 1787, replacing his earlier home on the same site, which had burned down when a barn on an adjoining property caught on fire. When a British cannonball hit the house during the War of 1812, Capt. Palmer waited until it had cooled and brought it to the fort to be returned to its sender! From 1837 to 1840, the house was occupied by Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler, whose sister was married to Dr. George E. Palmer of Stonington, and her family. Her husband, the engineer Major George Washington Whistler, was working on the Providence to Stonington railroad. Their son, the artist James McNeill Whistler, was a child at the time. He later painted the famous portrait of his mother in 1871. The family frequently revisited the house. In the twentieth century, it was the home of the poet, Stephen Vincent Benét, and later the Canadian artist, author and filmmaker, James Houston.