The house of Oliver Ellsworth, on Palisado Avenue in Windsor, was originally at the heart of the Ellsworth estate, called Elmwood. It was built in 1781 by Samuel Denslow, to Ellsworth’s specifications. Oliver Ellsworth had been born on the property in 1745 and went on to become a member of the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, an envoy to France, a framer of the U.S. Constitution, the chairman of the Senate Committee that framed the bill organizing the federal judiciary system, and the third Chief Justice of the United States. Ellsworth married Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth in 1772 and the couple lived in the house until his death in 1807. Two sitting presidents visited the house, George Washington in 1789 and John Adams in 1799.
In 1788, Ellsworth commissioned Thomas Hayden, a notable Windsor architect-builder, to construct a two-story addition to the house on the south elevation. The addition’s first floor was a drawing room, in which Ellsworth’s daughter Abigail married Ezekiel Williams, son of the merchant and Hartford County Sheriff, Ezekiel Williams of Wethersfield in 1794. Ezekiel Williams Sr had served with Ellsworth on the Committe of the Pay Table during the Revolutionary War. The Greek Revival-style colonnaded porch was added by Martin Ellsworth in 1836. Members of the Ellsworth family continued to live in the house until 1903. It was then deeded to the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution by Oliver Ellsworth’s descendants. Restored in the 1980s and 1990s, the house is open to the public as the Oliver Ellsworth Homestead.