Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee House (1765)

Built for Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee on Palisado Green in Windsor around 1765. The Georgian style house is constructed of brick and features a gambrel roof. John Adams dined there in 1774. Dr. Chaffee’s daughter, Abigail, married Colonel James Loomis in 1805. In 1874, their children, including the state senator James Chaffee Loomis, founded the co-educational Loomis Institute. The Chaffee House would later be utilized by the girls’ division, which broke off in 1926 to form the Chaffee School. The two branches reunited in 1970 to form the Loomis-Chaffee School. Records survive relating to the slaves owned by Dr. Chaffee, including the documents for the emancipation of Elizabeth Stevenson. Another slave in the Chaffee household was Nancy Toney, who was later owned by Dr. Chaffee’s daughter, Abigail. When she died in 1857, she was the last surviving slave in Connecticut. The house is now owned by the town of Windsor and is currently open as a museum, maintained and operated by the Windsor Historical Society.