According to tradition, the house at 500 Main Street in Old Saybrook was built by Dr. Samuel Eliot around 1737. Records indicate, though, that the house was built by Eliot’s brother, Dr. Augustus Eliot, who was also a physician. The house was likely not completed at the time of Augustus Eliot’s death in 1747. It was sold by his estate to Capt. Samuel Lord in 1749, who then sold it to his son-in-law, Capt. Jabez Stow, Sr. It was Capt. Stow who most likely finished the house. He later served as a lieutenant in the defense of Fort Griswold and was taken prisoner by the British. He died in 1785 and his son, Jabez Stow, Jr., was lost at sea in 1788. The house was then occupied by his daughter, Mary Stow, who had married Capt. David Newell in 1784. According to The History of Middlesex County (1884), “Capt. Newell was engaged in the slave trade, and was killed during a rising of the slaves on board his vessel” at the Island of Boa Vista, in the Cape Verde Islands in 1819. Sea captains’ families continued to live in the house until 1890. It remains a private residence today.
