This transitional Federal house in Thetford was built around 1795 for an Isaac White. The house was later owned by Orange Heaton (who’s name perfectly fits the color of the leaves in the photo). The design is refined, yet stately with the enclosed, gabled, projecting entrance porch. Louvered panels and an elliptical louvered fan frame the door.
In 1688, John Staples, settled in the untouched landscape seven miles west of Boston, now known as Waban Village in the town of Newton. John was a weaver by trade but he ended up as the first public school teacher, the town clerk, a policeman, and an alderman. John married and lived in a modest farmhouse for decades here, witnessing the birth of a new nation nearby. The couple had no children of their own but raised some of Mary’s relatives including Moses Crafts, who would eventually take over the home. Craft rebuilt the house on the original foundation around 1750, constructing a colonial farmhouse two and a half stories high with five windows and two rooms across, one room wide.
Joseph Crafts died in 1821 at the age of 85, leaving no will and considerable
debts owed. The Judge of Probate ordered the property to be auctioned, and
Joseph’s son, Moses Crafts II, made the winning bid of $5.50 for the house,
barn, and a large tract of land! In 1824, Moses Craft II sold the property to his cousin William Wiswall, who gave the house a Federal period remodeling.
By the late 19th century, the home and ample farm land were acquired by William Strong and his wife Mary. William, President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, used the property for some time as a nursery, with apple orchards and rose gardens. After his petitioning for a train station in Waban, he parceled up the farmland into large house lots for sale, seeing the neighborhood shifting to a suburban village. He soon after built the Strong Block, the first commercial building here.
Set back from tree-lined Main Street in Suffield, the Phelps-Hatheway House is but one of many handsome eighteenth and nineteenth century homes in the town. The house began construction sometime between 1732-1762 as a modest gable-roof Georgian home built by Abraham Burbank. In 1788, the home was purchased by Oliver Phelps. at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Phelps joined the Continental Army and fought in the Battle of Lexington. He left service in 1777 and, relying on his experience as a merchant, became Massachusetts Superintendent of Purchases of Army Supplies, a Deputy Commissary of the Continental Army. He was introduced to Robert Morris, the great financier of Revolutionary times. He supplied troops and received commendation from George Washington for his efforts. After the war ended, he became a prominent businessman and was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1785 and served on the Governor’s council in 1786 (Suffield was still a part of Massachusetts at this point).
Upon returning, Phelps hired architect Asher Benjamin (when he was in his early 20s!) to redesign the home into a gambrel roof mansion and construct numerous additions to make the house a suitable home for a wealthy, sophisticated man such as himself. Phelps was a principal in the Phelps and Gorham Purchase of six million acres of land in upstate New York, making him one of the nation’s largest landowners. Phelps lived here until 1802, when he moved to Canandaigua, New York, to more closely oversee the development and sale of his holdings. Phelps or his heirs sold the house, which was purchased by Asahel Hatheway and it remained in the Hatheway family for a century. It is now owned by Connecticut Landmarks and operates as a house museum.
Located on the idyllic Main Street of Suffield, Connecticut, the Alexander King House stands as a well-preserved example of a high-style Georgian home. Alexander King (1737-1802) is a prominent figure in Suffield’s history. He was a graduate of Yale, and later practiced medicine in town, as well as serving as Selectman and Town Clerk for almost thirty years. He was also a Justice of the Peace, Representative to the Assembly, participant in agitation against British colonialism, and delegate to the Connecticut Ratifying Convention of 1788, when the state ratified the U.S Constitution. The home eventually was acquired by the Suffield Historical Society, who operate the home as a house museum and holds exhibits on the town’s rich history.
Before the invention of the automobile, horses cluttered American streets. Every town would have a saddle shop with a skilled leatherworker who would manufacture saddles, bags, stirrups and other equestrian gear. In Suffield, Connecticut, a man named Consider Williston had a shop built to make and sell saddles. According to the sign on the building, it was built in 1776, which is odd as Consider Williston fought in the Revolutionary War at that same time. The building was eventually converted to a private home and was listed for sale, with images showing the stunning Colonial era wood beams and floors.
On the rural back roads of Suffield, CT, it is amazing how many historic farmhouses you can stumble upon. This is the Lewis-Zukowski Farmhouse, built in 1781, as one of the earliest brick homes built in this part of the state. When Hezekiah Lewis (?-1805) built his house in 1781, he was a farmer of modest prosperity. By the time of his death in 1805, he was somewhat wealthier, perhaps because of his second marriage in 1794 to widow Ruth Phelps, as his 91-acre farm. His estate indicates he was a traditional farmer of the period: he had a yoke of oxen, 2 horses, 2 cows, and 2 pigs, suggesting that he was primarily raising sustenance for his family, not products for market. Michael Zukowski arrived in Suffield in 1888 with his family as an immigrant from Poland. Zukowski worked on a farm in town for $8.00 a month plus board for local tobacco farmer Calvin Spencer. He had saved enough by 1905 to pay Hiram Knox (then the owner of the former Lewis Farm) $2,800 in cash, purchasing the property. Zukowski worked the farm until the 1920s, when his son took it over and he moved to another farm nearby. The house remained in the family one more generation until it was sold out of the family. It remains as an architecturally and culturally significant farm in Suffield.
Ebenezer Gay (1718-1796), the third minister of the First Congregational Church of Suffield, was born in 1718 in Dedham, Mass. His father was a substantial farmer, and his uncle was the famous minister, Ebenezer Gay of Hingham. Young Ebenezer graduated from Harvard in 1737, and held his first preaching job three years later. Reverend Gay became a candidate for a pastor in the Suffield Congregation, becoming ordained in 1742. That same year he married his wife, Hannah, and they had this massive home built adjacent to the town’s church. Rev. Gay and his wife had no children, but had adopted a black girl “Sybil” who was baptized as the “child of Ebenezer and Hannah”. There were other black members in the Gay household in later years including Titus Gay. “Old Ti” was born in 1787, and lived nearly his entire early life in Suffield, CT. He was born to a family of slaves also owned by Reverend Ebenezer Gay, making him born into slavery. His mother, Rose Gay, was a princess in Africa, and his father was owned by Major Elihu Kent. Reverend Gay was the pastor of the church until his death in 1796. The home was later occupied by other pastors at the church, and was eventually acquired by Suffield Academy for use as housing. The gambrel roof Georgian mansion features a stunning Connecticut Valley doorway with swan’s neck pediment.
In 1775, when news of the Battle of Lexington reached Suffield, Elihu Kent Sr. (1733-1814) at the age of 42 took command of a local militia of 59 men the next day, along with his son Elihu Kent Jr., 18, and his slave Titus Kent, and marched to Springfield, before heading toward Boston. Initially, slaves were discouraged from enlisting in the Continental Army as the Continental Congress was trying to appease the southern states into fighting in the Revolution. England offered freedom to slaves who fought for their side. forcing the Continental Congress to do the same in order to keep a balance. The militia later ended up on Long Island and Kent Jr. was captured by British forces and confined for a long time as a prisoner of war in the old Rhinelander Sugar House in New York. After his return to Suffield, Elihu Kent Jr. had this Georgian home built for his family.
The Thomas and Esther Smith House in the Feeding Hills area of Agawam, Massachusetts is a 1½ story, vernacular Georgian style house with a gambrel roof. Feeding Hills, so named for its bountiful soils, is an agricultural plain approximately five miles west of the Connecticut River at the eastern foot of Provin Mountain. The land was highly sought after by farmers, with many agricultural uses still taking place here to this day. This parcel of land was purchased by Thomas Smith, a carpenter, in 1757, who likely built the home soon after for his new family. The family occupied the home into the mid-19th century, harvesting crops and raising cattle for sustenance and sale. The agricultural property was subdivided numerous times and now sits on just an acre. The home and remaining land was purchased by the Agawam Historical Society in 2002, who maintain the property and educate on Agawam’s agricultural heritage.
One of the most visited buildings in New England is the stunning Old North Church in the North End of Boston. Old North Church (originally Christ Church in the City of Boston) was established when the cramped original King’s Chapel, then a small wooden structure near Boston Common, proved inadequate for the growing number of Anglicans in the former Puritan stronghold. Subscriptions for a new church were invited in 1722. The sea captains, merchants, and artisans who had settled in Boston’s North End contributed generously to the building fund, and construction began in April, 1723. The church was designed by William Price, though heavily influenced by Christopher Wren’s English churches.
Before the American Revolution, both Patriots and Tories were members of the church, and often sat near each-other in pews, clearly adding to bubbling tensions. The enduring fame of the Old North began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton, Robert Newman, and Vestryman Capt. John Pulling, Jr. climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea across the Charles River and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution.
A full scale restoration of Old North was carried out in 1912-14 under the direction of architect R. Clipson Sturgis and a number of 19th century alterations were then eliminated. In this work, floor timbers and gallery stairs were replaced, the original arched window in the apse at the east end was replaced, and the old square box pews and raised pulpit were reconstructed. Additionally, the interior woodwork was incorrectly repainted white rather than the rich variety of original colors described in the early documents of the church, clearly submitting to Colonial Revival sensibilities. The iconic white steeple is also not original. The original steeple of the Old North Church was destroyed by the 1804 Snow hurricane. A replacement steeple, designed by Charles Bulfinch, was toppled by a hurricane in 1954. The current steeple uses design elements from the original and the Bulfinch version. Even with all these differences, Old North lives up to her name and stands proudly as a symbol of freedom and revolution.
Buildings of New England 