William Avery House (1792)

This house at 35 Main Street in North Stonington was built by William Avery (1765-1798) around 1792. In partnership with Nathan Pendleton, Avery opened a tavern in the house. He also built a store, later called Browning & Clark, on the same lot. This building later became the tailor shop of Cornelius Cornell. The house and store were acquired by Stanton Hewitt (d. 1847), who had married William Avery’s daughter, Mary. Hewitt owned a grist mill and shingle mill in North Stonington. In the 1860s, the store was moved to become what is now a wing of the nearby Noah Grant, Jr. House. Stanton Hewitt’s son, Charles Edwin Hewitt, inherited the house and he returned to North Stonington to live there around 1900. He died in 1910 and his daughter, Edna Hewitt Tryon, inherited the house. She left it to her nephew, Fernando Waterman Bentley (d. 1981) in 1946.