Walter Gwatkin House (1905)

There is some uncertainty about the date and exact address of the Walter Gwatkin House on Worthington Ridge in Berlin. The nomination form for the Worthington Ridge Historic District lists it as no. 1008 and gives the date as c. 1905. A walking tour booklet (doc) for the District gives the address as 1006 and the date as c. 1861, noting that the porch dates to the early 1900s. Walter Gwatkin (1856-1921) was a prosperous butcher, farmer and landowner. Catharine M. North, in her History of Berlin (1915), makes note of the house that existed before the current one:

In 1817 Horace Steele, Elishama Brandegee’s next door neighbor on the south, was engaged in the business of bookbinding. Afterwards he made bandboxes, which he carried to Hartford to sell to the milliners.

Mr. Steele’s children were Eliza (mother of the Rev. Andrew T. Pratt, missionary in Turkey), Caroline (Mrs. Joseph Booth), Mary, Jane, Lucy Ann (Mrs. Lorenzo Lamb), and William.

Their home, a large colonial house set well back from the street, was, in its day, socially a center of attraction, filled as it was with bright, merry young people. The old house was torn down by William Steele and the house which he built on its site is now owned by Walter Gwatkin.