This large Italianate mansion on Main Street in Suffield was built in 1860 by John Wells Loomis for his son, George. George ran a cigar shop in a separate building on the lot, selling rolled cigars that his family harvested and rolled. The mansion features a belvedere atop the low sloped hip roof with broad overhanging eaves. John Loomis’ home is a couple lots away.
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.
The congregation’s second sanctuary, this Colonial Revival church building was constructed in 1952 for the large Polish population in town. In the 1890s, Polish immigrants settled in rural Suffield in large numbers, many working on tobacco farms. The St. Joseph’s Polish Society was formed in 1905, with increasing demand for a sanctuary to worship. The lot at 140 S. Main Street was purchased in 1916 and the stable was converted to a church, with the home converted to the rectory. After WWII, the stable was clearly insufficient, and the site was cleared for a larger sanctuary which we see today.
Initially established as the Connecticut Literary Institute (the school was renamed Suffield School in 1916 and then Suffield Academy in 1937), the mission of this school with Baptist roots was to educate young men for the ministry. As the Connecticut Literary Institute was the only high school in Suffield, the town tax dollars paid for local students to attend. Although town and local Baptists served a major role in getting the school underway, the founders soon moved away from a denominational focus. Built for the Institute in 1854, this large brick academic building was designed in the Italianate style with brackets and decorative brickwork at the cornice. In 1950, the school “Colonialized” the campus beginning with the Memorial Building, removing the Victorian flair for a more traditional Colonial Revival appearance. They also did the same with Fuller Hall next door.
The Connecticut Literary Institute opened in Suffield, CT, with Baptist roots with the goal to educate young men for the ministry. Later rebranding as Suffield Academy, the school was the only high school in town, so it received tax revenue from the town to allow boys outside the Baptist faith to study there. Later, with changing views of women’s right to education, the school allowed women into the school in 1843. Forty years later, the school constructed this building, then known as the ‘Women’s Building’ just next door to the 1854 Memorial Hall. The Second Empire style academic building was heavily modified in 1953, just like its counterpart next door in the Colonial Revival style, adding a cupola and removing the stunning mansard roof.
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.
Located on Main Street in Suffield, this Greek Revival home stands out for its perfect proportions, entry detailing, and the large 20th century porch. The home was likely built around 1840 for Milo Milton Owen (1811-1886), within a year of his marriage to Martha Alderman in 1839.
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 Spencer family emigrated from Braintree, England to America in 1638, with Thomas Spencer settling in Hartford, Connecticut in 1640. Thomas Spencer Jr., the second generation in Connecticut moved to modern-day Suffield in the 1670s. Generations later, Israel L. Spencer (1833-1887) became a businessman and politician, later being employed at the First National Bank in Suffield, continuing the family’s legacy in town. Mr. Spencer had this Italianate house on South Main Street built for him and his family. Israel’s son Charles L. Spencer grew up in the home, later following in his father’s footsteps becoming the president of the local bank. Sadly, the home has seen better days, hopefully it can be restored and maintained in the future!
Located on South Main Street in Suffield, Connecticut, this stunning Second Empire mansion showcases the tobacco wealth seen in the town in the mid-to-late 19th century. In 1810, a Cuban man who seemingly drifted into town, was hired by a local farmer to grow tobacco and roll cigars for sale. Decades later, dozens of farmers in Suffield erected tobacco barns and cultivated tobacco to be rolled in cigars and sold. One of the first to box the cigars as a pack for shipping and sale was Henry Phelps Kent (1803-1887). Kent’s business did very well and he eventually hired local architect John C. Mead to design a mansion to display his success in business. The large Second Empire mansion features flush-board siding, full length porch, and a projecting mansarded tower with convex roof. The home was later owned by Samuel R. Spencer, a politician who served as a Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, the first as a blind man. The home is now operated as a bed & breakfast “Spencer on Main”.
This meeting hall in Suffield, CT was built in 1883 on Crooked Lane, named Central Hall. When Crooked Lane was renamed Mapleton Ave, the hall was so renamed to reflect this name change, to Mapleton Hall. Starting in 1885, the hall was home to the local grange, a fraternal organization that encouraged families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture. With Suffield’s active agricultural uses (primarily in tobacco crops), this grange was quickly funded and built. For nearly 100 years the building saw use as a fraternal center, with dwindling membership after WWII, when the agricultural character of town began to make way for suburban growth. The building was sold to the Mapleton Hall Asssociation, in 1978, who began restoration of the structure which began to decay from deferred maintenance. The building is now owned by The Suffield Players, a non-profit community theater company.
This home was built for John and Mary Fuller in rural Suffield, CT 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 a 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. According to an 1886 article, a former slave from Stamford, CT died in the poorhouse. “Old Cato” was a slave owned by Maj. John Davenport, a lawyer and politician of 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. Back to the house… It was sold by the town at private auction in 1952 and purchased as a single family home, which it remains to this day. The house is a great example of a vernacular brick Federal style home with fanlights.
Suffield (originally Southfield) Connecticut, was once a part of Massachusetts, incorporated as a town in 1682. After having to travel to downtown Suffield to worship at the church there, the families in the west part of town established the Second Ecclesiastical Society in 1743. The first meeting house was built in 1744 on what was known as “Ireland Plain”, now the southwestern corner of the West Suffield Cemetery. In 1775, a second meeting house was erected on the site of the present building. It was rebuilt in 1839 using the earlier foundation. The Greek Revival church building is very charming with its columned portico and belfry surmounted above a stepped parapet. The church is very well preserved and a lasting remnant of West Suffield’s early days.
Buildings of New England 