Buildings of New England

This lovely brick, Federal style farmhouse was built in 1823 for John and Mary Fuller in rural Suffield, Connecticut, in 1823 and operated as a farm by the family for over fifty years. The town of Suffield purchased the house and farmland before the 1880s for use as the town’s poor farm. Poor farms (also known as almshouses) were often rural houses where paupers, mainly elderly and disabled people, were supported at public expense. The land was available for the elderly and workers to harvest crops for sale and sustenance. One of the “residents” at the poor farm was “Old Cato” a formerly enslaved person who was owned by Maj. John Davenport, a lawyer and politician in Stamford. Davenport offered Old Cato his freedom in 1812 if he enlisted to serve in the War of 1812, which he did. By the 1820s, he moved to Suffield CT, and worked at the West Suffield Congregational Church, paid to ring the bell at the church, likely also maintaining the property. He eventually ended up at the poorhouse and died, estimated to be over 100 years old. The old Fuller/Poor House was sold by the town in 1952 and converted back into a single-family residence.