Elijah Barber House (1790)

The Elijah Barber House, built in 1790, is at 227 Windsor Avenue in Windsor. Elijah Barber was a farmer who, like others at the time on Windsor Avenue, also made bricks. In 1798, John Warner Barber, the second of six children of Elijah and Mary Warner Barber, was born. He would take on additional farm work after his father’s death, in 1812, but was soon working as an apprentice to Abner Reed, an engraver in East Windsor Hill. Barber would become an artist and historian, writing Connecticut Historical Collections (1837), A History of the Amistad Captives (1840), Massachusetts Historical Collections (1848) and History and Antiquities of New Haven, Conn. (1856). The Barber House was later owned by the Wilson family for over a century. The house was converted into the Second French Empire style in 1878, with the addition of a new porch and mansard roof.