History of Stonington Borough, Connecticut

Stonington Borough, part of the Town of Stonington in southeastern Connecticut, was first settled in 1753, a little more than a century after William Chesebrough (1594-1667) established a trading post at nearby Wequetequock Cove in 1649.

Built on a granite peninsula less than a mile long, with wetlands to the north and the sea on the other three sides, the borough had only limited possibilities for expansion.

In 1873 the New York Daily Graphic described it as one of the most picturesque of the Connecticut villages along the northern shore of Long Island Sound."

(1) Although some houses survive from the eighteenth century, the majority are in the nine-teenth-century Greek revival style, reflecting the wealth brought to the town by sealing and whaling after the Revolutionary War.

Long Point, as Stonington Borough was first known, occupies the southwestern corner of the original grant given by the Town of New London to Chesebrough.

By 1745 his grandson Elihu Chesebrough Sr. (1668-1750) had deeded to his own son and namesake, Elihu Chesebrough Jr. (1704-1769),

all that tract... that I now live on 300 Acres, with ye meadow adjoining--also that tract--caled ye Old Field lying by Och Caset Cove [Oxecosset Cove]...and also that tract of land I bought of Mr. Amos Chesebrough adjoining. (2)

On August 7, 1753, Elihu Chesebrough Jr. wrote two deeds on Long Point to "Edward Denison [1724-1758] mariner" (3) for land on either side of a road to be built from Stonington Harbor to Preston, a rich agricultural community east of Norwich By this time Stonington itself was a farming community producing corn, wheat, livestock, and cheese for city markets and for the Caribbean trade. Elihu Chesebrough Jr. gave Denison the right to

cut as much timber on my land at Long Point, both for Quantity and Quality such as is suitable for building a wharf about 30 feet wide, and as long as said Denison think it is for him or the interest of the public.

Also to allow him to take off from said Point what stones shall be needed for the same... said Denison to proceed and build the same with convenient speed, extraordinaries eccepted, else the above promise becomes void. (4)

Denison wasted no time: he built a wharf to the west into Stonington Harbor and not far away a large house.

He did not live long to enjoy this house, however, for he died when his boat went aground on Turner's Reef (today Cormorant Reef, south of Latimer Point) on April 18, 1758. (5) The house was destroyed on April 2, 1837, during a fire that took with it a total of nineteen buildings along the waterfront and Water Street. (6)

In its place today are the Stonington Ocean Bank building on Cannon Square, built in 1851, and the Gilbert William Collins house, built in 1853 (Pl. XIV). Gilbert Collins and his brother Daniel (1813-1862), with Mark Glines (1811-1895), ran a mill at the east end of Wall Street, where they made doors and window-sash frames still found in local houses.

The bank was built in the Greek revival style favored by its president at the time, Charles Phelps Williams. Although it was acquired by the Stonington Historical Society in 1942, it is still a bank.

Edward Denison's sister Mary (1742-1800) married on April 5, 1759, Colonel Oliver Smith of nearby Groton, a merchant in the West Indies trade known for his role in the Revolutionary War. According to family tradition, soon after the couple moved to Long Point in 1761, they built a house just south of Wall Street, probably on land Mary Denison had inherited from her brother. The house (Pl. III) must have been moved to its present site north of Wall Street after March 15, 1812, when Nathaniel Miner Pendleton (1777-1848) sold the lot to David C. Smith (1782- 1883), a grandson of Oliver. (7)

Among the others who purchased waterfront lots on Long Point from Elihu Chesebrough Jr. were Edward Hancox (1714-1803), Isaac Sheffield (1731-1797), and John Brown (1701-1764). Chesebrough also sold land north of the town square on both sides of Main Street to a number of tradesmen: Nathaniel Tripp, a shipwright; Eliphalet Buddington, a cooper; Simeon Hiscox, a tailor; Nathan Stanton and Thomas Robinson, mariners; and Gilbert Fanning, a merchant. The two houses built by Fanning after 1761 still stand on the west side of Main Street between Union and Hannony Streets. Fanning's son Edmund (1769-1841), who was born at 44 Main Street, became the first American sea captain to circumnavigate the globe, in 1797 and 1798, aboard the Betsey, a New York ship with a crew from Stonington. His brother Nathaniel (1755-1805) sailed with John Paul Jones (1747-1792) during the Revolutionary War and became first borough clerk when he returned to Stonington. The land records of the Fanning houses show the uncertainty of the eco nomic life of a merchant. Gilbert Fanning no sooner had bought the land than economic circumstances forced him to deed it to his father-in-law, Dr. Nathan B. Palmer (1712-1795), and it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that Fanning's sons were able to regain title to their homestead.

By 1762 the population of Long Point had grown sufficiently to warrant a request to the General Assembly of the colony for eight or ten cannons to protect it against possible raids. (8) Elihu Chesebrough Jr. died on October 29, 1769, and his remaining lands were passed to his sons, William II (1745-1840), Naboth (1751-1804), and Elihu III (1743- 1781). (9) On October 27, 1770, Elihu III sold eleven acres north of High Street and west of Main Street as far as the harbor, known later as the Robinson Pasture, to Captain Thomas Robinson (c. 1730-1793) and approximately seven acres between Grand and High Streets west of Main Street to the harbor to Colonel Oliver Smith. The land between Water and Gold Streets from High to Church Streets was a common for pasturing sheep, and at this time wealthier residents began buying lots north of the borough for vegetable gardens. The footpath from High Street to the burial ground became a street in the 1830s and was named Gold Street in 1851.

William Fellowes, a ship carpenter, built a house in 1771 and 1772 on the comer of Main and Church Streets, on land he bought from William Chesebrough II for [pounds sterling]7 4s. on January 11,1772. (10) Originally gambrel-roofed, (11) its front door was on Main Street. Joshua Haley (1823-1893) bought the house in 1867 and remodeled it, as have subsequent owners. Today the original parlor wall testifies to the carpentry skills of its builder (see P1. X).

To the west of Fellowes's house is the William Terrett house (P1. VI), moved in 1836 from its original location at 26 Main Street. It appears to have been built after 1777, the year Joseph Maxson (1739-1818), a tailor from Westerly Rhode Island, sold the land to John Newman, a Newport physician. William Terrett, "a leather breeches maker and glover from London (late New York)," (12) bought the house from Newman in 1782, and his family lived there until 1822, when they sold it to Nathan Smith (1792-1873). In the 1820s it was the home of William Potter (1778-1842), the borough's lighthouse keeper.

Fire was a stem regulator of village life. James Hammond Trumbull (1821-1897), a Connecticut state archivist, wrote about the first devastating fire--on May 24, 1789--in his notebook:

A barn full of hay belonging to Esq. Nathaniel Miner [1732-1815], took fire, and communicated to a store & dwelling house belonging to Capt. Amos Palmer which were both consumed, with a quantity of West Indian goods, two or three hundred bushels of Indian corn & a quantity of household furniture. Capt. Palmer's loss is about [pounds sterling]1000. (13)

Amos Palmer built a new house on his land (P1. V), and an 1809 deed for the adjoining property to the south describes the boundaries of the land conveyed with this phrase:

beginning 32 links south from the southeast corner of a dwelling house that formerly belonged to Capt. Amos Palmer which house is since burnt and a new house rebuilt but not exactly on the same foundation. (14)

A British cannonball hit Palmer's new house during the Battle of Stonington in the War of 1812, and he is said to have waited for it to cool off and then carried it to the fort, asking that it be returned to the sender! (15) The house is known locally as "the Whistler House" because James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903), the painter, visited as a small boy when his father, Major George Washington Whistler (1800-1849), was engaged in building the Stonington and Providence Railroad in the 1830s. His mother's sister was married to Amos Palmer's son George E. (1803-1868), who then owned the house. It was later the home of the poet Stephen Vincent Beralt (1898-1943) and his family.

At the north end of the block on which the Palmer house stands is Dr. Lord's Hall (P1. VII). The front part, possibly built by Thomas Griffing, may date to 1765. At the time David A. Starr (1786-1819) bought it from Nathan S. Stanton (1782-1840) in 1811, the lot had a "shop and a house." (16) The 1814 tax assessment lists a two-story house twenty-four-feet square on the site. A defaulted mortgage made Dr. William Lord the owner; he enlarged the house, gutted the second floor, and installed a spring floor so that dancing classes could beheld, at a time when the local Baptist church frowned heavily on such goings-on. The first Stonington band used to practice here, and the "Brass Band room" was used for meetings of the Episcopal church from 1844 to 1849. (17)

Enterprising merchants built houses and wharves on the harbor side of the borough as well. Among these elegant Federal houses are those built for Peleg Hancox Sr. (1787-1855) at 168 Water Street and the very similar one built for Ephraim Williams Jr. (P1. VIII). At 76 Water Street is the William Sheffield house (see P1 XI), built about 1776 by Isaac Sheffield Jr. for his son William. Captain William Sheffield was a successful merchant, but his life was not without tragedy His first wife, Lucy Ann, died at twenty-four in 1782; in May 1783 he married Elizabeth Eells (1762-1812), the daughter of the Reverend Nathaniel Eells (1711-1786), the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Stonington (also known as Road Church). Two of their young sons were drowned while playing on the wharf, and another, Joseph (1804-1879), narrowly missed the same fate when he fell into a holding tank for fish. The overmantel painting in Plate XI, still in the parlor of the house, has been attributed to Jared Jessup. Originally all the walls in the room had painted decoration, as did the stairwell.(18)

The silversmith Zebulon Stanton had a shop in the wing that appears to have been added to his house after 1790 (Pl. IX). The earliest part of the house was probably built in 1786, when Zebulon's father-in-law, Jonathan Gray (1742-1807), bought the lot on which it stands. (19) Two of Zebulon's brothers, Daniel (1755-1781) and Enoch (1745-1781), also silversmiths, were killed at the Battle of Groton Heights on September 6, 1781, during the Revolutionary War. (20)

After the war, Stonington prospered: the fishing industry brought in impressive revenues, as did the triangle trade with the West Indies and Europe. The Robinson Burial Ground on Broad Street, the resting place of distinguished families of the borough, was established in 1785. One has only to read the gravestones to be impressed by the distances traveled by Stonington mariners: some died in South America, others in the South Pacific.

Stonington was established as a port of entry in 1785 when Colonel Jonathan Palmer Jr. (1747-1810) was appointed as naval officer to collect excise taxes, and in 1791 by presidential appointment he was named collector of customs. By 1800 there were 150 houses and stores, and 200 families. In 1801 a petition for a separate government was enacted in the Connecticut legislature, and Stonington Borough was established.

At this time only a few houses stood south of the town landing (today Cannon Square). There were a lighthouse and a windmill on the point, and north of the light was the "Flake Pasture" for drying fish, described by Martha Denison Peete (1796-1887), who came to Stonington in 1806:

The principal business of the place at that time was cod-fishing. The Cod-fishing vessels loaded with salted undried fish would spread their load upon the flakes upon the common ground around the lighthouse, and at night pile them in stacks as high as they could reach, resembling stacks of hay or grain, but not as fragrant. (21)

In 1823 the heirs of Joseph Denison II (1735-1785) and Otis Pendleton (1780-1828) sold land to the United States government on which to build a lighthouse to replace the existing one, which had been made unsafe by a big storm in 1815. Benjamin Chase of Newport built a new lighthouse, lit by twelve whale-oil reflectors, but within fifteen years, the lights became ineffective, and the continually eroding coastline had brought the high water twenty-two feet closer to the, building. Another lighthouse (Pl. XII) was built in 1840 by John Bishop, but its light was discontinued after the government took over the light on the new Stonington breakwater in November 1889. The lighthouse was acquired by the Stonington Historical Society and in 1925 was opened as a museum displaying its collection of artifacts related to Stonington's history. (22) The earliest portrait in the collection is that of David Chesebrough (see Pl. IV) painted in Newport in 1732 by John Smibert, not long after Chesebrough's marriage to Abigail R ogers (1711-1738). A wealthy merchant active in the triangle trade, Chesebrough was a founder of the Redwood Library and a benefactor of the Second Congregational Church and the Scots Charitable Society, all in Newport. After Abigail Rogers Chesebrough's death he married Margaret Sylvester (1719-1782) of Long Island, New York, in 1749, and they moved to Stonington in 1776, shortly before their Newport house was taken over by the British. (23)

The historical society also possesses examples of the stonewares made at the States pottery (see Pl. IV), which stood with its own wharf at the end of Wall Street. The States family was thought to be Dutch, but recent research shows that they came originally from Maxsain in the Westerwald region of the German Rhineland. (24) The first Adam States (1720-1769) had settled in Greenwich, Connecticut, by 1750; his son Adam (1755-1826) was apprenticed to an uncle, Peter States, a potter in Pawcatuck, the eastern part of Stonington Township. After Adam Jr.'s marriage to Esther Noyes (c. 1761-1787) in 1778 he lived on Pequot Trail on Hinckley Hill in Pawcatuck and operated a pottery there. His son Adam m (1779-1864) went into business with a cousin, William States (1778-1823), and they opened the wall Street pottery in 1811. In 1821 Adam sold his part of the business to William, who died in 1823. Joshua Swan Jr. (b. 1793) and Ichabod States (1792-1841) then made stoneware stamped "SWAN & STATES/STONINGTON" on this si te until 1835, when the partnership was dissolved and the pottery closed. (25)

The Greek revival house at 46 Main Street (Pl. XV) was built between 1808 and 1814 for Jabez Stanton, a sea captain and the firstborn of silversmith Zebulon Stanton's thirteen children. (26) In 1814 it was valued at twelve hundred dollars. In 1830 the house was bought by Sheldon Tomlinson (1806-1876), the director of the Stonington Marble Works, which had been located on the property since 1828. He sold it in 1834 to another marble cutter, Orin Doty, whose handiwork may be seen in local cemeteries, the marble gravestones distinguished by italic lettering with his name at the base.

Stonington was bombarded by the British for three traumatic days during the Battle of Stonington in August 1814. Many buildings were damaged, and the whole population was evacuated. When peace came, the American South and West began to open up for trade, and a number of Stonington residents moved on. At home sealing and whaling flourished. Blacks, often former slaves, worked as seamen and domestics and owned houses in the borough. In the 1830s many worked for the railroads and steamboats that increasingly provided service connecting New York and Boston. The Stonington and Providence Railroad started service in November 1837, and the Wadawanuck House Hotel, on the site of the present Stonington Free Library, was built the same year, to provide for the passengers, as well as for summer visitors. The railroad acquired land on the west side of Gold Street for possible use for tracks to the steamboat landing, but sold it in September 1845. Among the brick structures subsequently built on this land are 34 and 36 Go ld Street (see Pl. XVI), which belonged to Freeman Wallace, a jeweler for whose business Gold and Pearl Streets were named. His shop, strategically placed on the street from the steamboat wharf and rail-road station to the Wadawanuck House Hotel, occupied the ground floor of both buildings.

At the southern end of Main Street, William Pendleton, a merchant, built the house in Plate XIII after 1831 on the site of what had been his father's one-story wooden house. Pendleton owned the entire block east to Little Narragansett Bay Since the Revolutionary War, cattle from Block Island had been landed on this beach and taken to the slaughterhouse nearby.

Perhaps in order to pay for his mansion, Pendleton sold land on Diving Street in 1840 to Charles P. Williams, an entrepreneur who made his fortune in shipping, whaling, and fishing. He built several plain houses on the north side of the street, which were subsequently owned by sea captains, housepainters, and fishermen, but he much preferred the Greek revival style. After the fire of April 1837 he erected the seven-columned Arcade building at 61 Water Street as a commercial structure and maintained his whaling office there. In 1839 he moved his new house on Water Street to newly acquired property at 39 Main Street, and added wings to either side and the handsome Ionic columns that still grace it today In order to move the house he had Main Street leveled, which accounts for the front doors of 24 and 26 Main Street being far above street level today (see P1. V). In 1844 Williams bought the homestead property of Ebenezer Cobb at 33 Main Street (27) and by 1848 had built a handsome Greek revival house on the sit e (Pl. XVIII). Williams never lived in this house, however, but rented it to Captain George Hubbard Jr. (1810-1886) and then sold it to Gurdon Pendleton on May 1, 1849. (28)

The Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer House (Pl. XVII), a National Historic Landmark, is the headquarters of the Stonington Historical Society The original structure on the site, an inn built in the late eighteenth century burned in November 1850, and over the following two years Nathaniel Palmer and his recently widowed brother, Captain Alexander Smith Palmer, erected a new house to the Italianate designs of Gamaliel King of New York, the architect of Brooklyn City Hall (now Brooklyn Borough Hall; built 1845-1848) in New York. The floor plan of the house reflects the changes in lifestyles that had developed by 1850: for example, the four upstairs bedrooms have closets and passages between them to insure privacy High ceilings, fireplaces in every room, inside shutters for the windows, and a large storage closet for tableware in the dining room bespeak the owners' gentility From the cupola, there is a panoramic view, with Stonington harbor to the southwest.

An Episcopal church was established in Stonington in 1844, offering an alternative to the Baptist and Congregational churches that had existed in the borough since the mid 1780s. The New York City architect Richard Upjohn designed the Calvary Episcopal Church building, which was consecrated in 1849, but by 1858 more space was needed.

James Ingersoll Day, a wealthy church member, commissioned Upjohn to design a chapel in the so-called carpenter Gothic style, which was completed in 1860 (Pl. XIX). A memorial window was given by Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer, and five stained-glass windows were made by William J. Hannington (or Hanington; 1816-1891) in New York City (29) Originally the chapel stood at right angles to the church building, but in 1892 it was moved when the rectory was built in its place, and it now faces the church building. (30)

In 1860 John F Trumbull built a handsome French Second Empire mansion (Pl. I) for his son Horace Niles Trumbull at 85 Main Street, on land that in 1801 had been the site of the house his older brother Samuel (1778-1826), a printer, had bought from Benjamin Smith, a hatter. The back end of the lot was the site of the second Congregational meetinghouse, built in 1786 and demolished to make way for the Trumbull house.

The railroad ceased coming into the borough to meet steamboats in 1889, for the large rivers between Stonington and New York had been bridged. Whaling had stopped in the 1860s, the last sealing vessel had sailed in the early 1870s, and the last steamship embarked in August 1909. The borough settled into a quieter mode. This year Stonington Borough will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its first settlement: one hopes that in the years to come its residents will continue to keep the history that is so well preserved today.

I am particularly grateful to James R. Boylan, the editor of Historical Footnotes: Bulletin of the Stonington Historical Society, for his aid and advice in the preparation of this article.

(1.) New York Daily Graphic, an Illustrated Evening Newspaper, August 26, 1873.

(2.) Deed 6/272, Elihu Chesebmugh Sr. to Elihu Chesebrough Jr., December 5, 1741. This and all the other deeds cited in this article are in the Stonington Land Records, Stonington Town Clerks office, Town Hall, Stonington, Connecticut.

(3.) Deeds 6/329 and 61331, Elihu Chesebrough Jr. to Edward Denison, August 7, 1753.

(4.) Quoted in Williams Haynes, Stonington Chronology 1649-1976: Being a Year-by-Year Record of the American Way of Life in a Connecticut Town, 2nd ed. (published for the Stonington Historical Society by Pequot Press, Chester, Connecticut, 1976), p.53. The primary source for this quotation has not been found. It is not in the deeds from Elihu chesebrough Jr. to Denison and appears to have been a private agreement.

(5.) E. Glenn Denison, Josephine Middleton Peck, and Donald L Jacobus, Denisan Genealogy: Ancestors and Descendants of Captain George Denison (1963; reprint, Gateway Press, naltimore, 1978), p. 44.

(6.) Henry Robinson Palmer, Stonington by the Sea, 2nd ed. (Palmer Press, Stonington, 1957), pp. 54-56.

(7.) Deed 16/45, Nathaniel Miner Pendleton to David C. Smith, March 15, 1812.

(8.) Richard M. Jones, Stonington Borough: A Connecticut Seaport in the Nineteenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1976), p. 15.

(9.) Elihu Chesebrough's last deed was dated on January 3, 1769, to Joseph Denison II (deed 8/316-317).

(10.) Deed 9/383, William Chesebrough II to William Fellowes, January 11, 1772. It was not unusual for houses to be built before the land transaction was complete.

(11.) Grace Denison Wheeler, The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn. (Newcomb and Gauss, Salem, Massachusetts, 1903), pp. 153-154.

(12.) Advertisement in the New Haven Connecticut Gazette, October 10,1775; reproduced in Historical Footnotes: Bulletin of the Stonington Historical Society, vol. 12, no. 4 (November 1975), p. 15.

(13.) James Hammond Trumbull notebook, p. 151 (Richard W. Woolworth Library, Stonington Historical Society, Stonington, Connecticut).

(14.) Deed 17/283, Simon and Sally Carew to Amos, Sally, and Abby Sheffield, March 13, 1809.

(15.) Wheeler, The Homes of Our Ancestors, p. 122.

(16.) Deed 15/605, Nathan S. Stanton to David Starr, January 3, 1811.

(17.) Wheeler, The Homes of Our Ancestors, pp. 129-130; and Minor Myers, History of Cal vary Church, Stonington (Calvary Churchwomen, Stonington, Connecticut, 1973), p.2.

(18.) painted decoration and attribution to Jessup appear in Nina Fletcher Little, American Decorative Wail Painting 1700-1850 (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1972), pp. 88-89.

(19.) Deed 11/87, Nathaniel Chesebrough to Jonathan Gray, February 14, 1785. Gray bought the adjoining lot in 1790 (deed 12/206-7, Edward Hancox II to Jonathan Gray, July 7, 1790).

(20.) George Munson Curtis, Early Silver of Connecticut and Its Makers (International Silver Company, Meriden, Connecticut, 1913), pp. 111-112.

(21.) Martha Denison Peete, "My Home in Connecticut Fifty Years Ago," Bulletin of the Connecticut Historical Society, vol. 11 (January 1946), p. 5.

(22.) Karen L. Phillips, "The Stonington Lighthouse and Harbor," Historical Footnotes: Bulletin of the Stonington Historical Society, vol. 23, no. 1 (November 1985), pp. 6-7, 11; and Bruce Clouette, "Notes on the Stonington Harbor Lighthouse," ibid., vol. 15,004 (August 1978), pp. 6-7.

(23.) Their gambrel-roofed house, today part of a boatyard, still stands on the west shore of Wequetequock Cove near Route 1 in Stonington Borough. David and Margaret Sylvester Chesebrough are both buried under handsome gravestones carved by John Stevens III (1753-1817) in the Wequetequock Burial Ground in Stonington (Michael J. Boonstra, "Descendants of 'King' David Chesebrough of Newport, Rhode Island," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 156 [July 2002], p. 233).

(24.) Parish records of baptisms, marriages, deaths, and confirmations of Maxsain, includes Freilingen, Woelferlingen, and Zuerbach, Records of the Evangelical Church, Maxsain, Westerwald, Germany, microfilm no. 1195957, item 5 (Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints).

(25.) Emily N. Wharton, "Stonington Pottery," Historical Footnotes: Bulletin of the Stonington Historical Society, vol. 14, no. 2 (February 1977), pp. 1-2, 10.

(26.) The house stood on land that had been part of Gilbert Fanning's estate, which Jabez Stanton bought in 1808 from William Woodbridge (c. 1745-1825) (deed 15/424, William Woodbridge to Jabez Stanton, May 10, 1808). Woodbridge had won it in a court settlement in 1787.

(27.) Deed 22/239, James N. Cobb of New York City and his wife, Phebe E., to Charles P. Williams, August 8, 1844; and deed 22/234, Julia E. Cobb to Charles P. Williams, August 12, 1844.

(28.) Deed 24/72, Charles P. Williams to Gurdon Pendleton, May 1, 1849.

(29.) Hannington's dates are from Mount Albion Cemetery [Albion, New York], records transcribed by Sharon A Kerridge (www.rootsweb.com/~nyorlean/mtalbh.html), p. 16.

(30.) Myers, History of Calvary Church, pp. 24-26.

Pl. I. The Horace Niles Trumbull house, 85 Main Street in Stonington Borough, Connecticut, was built by John F. Trumbull (1796-1874) for his son Horace Niles Trumbull (1825-1894) in 1860. In 1899 it was sold to the family of Josiah Culbert Palmer (1859- 1928), whose descendants still Jive in it. Photographs are by Paul Rocheleau.

Pl. III. View of Stonington Borough across Little Narragansett Bay from Salt Acres.

Pl. III. The Colonel Oliver Smith house, 25 Main Street, was built for Colonel Oliver Smith (1739-1811) after 1761. Probably the oldest house in Stonington, it is Privately owned.

Pl. IV. A portrait of David Chesebrough (1702/3-1782), painted by John Smibert (1688-1751) in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1732, hangs over the fireplace in the main room of the Old Lighthouse Museum. In front of the fireplace are examples of stonewares made in Stonington at the States pottery (1811-1835).

Pl. V. The Amos Painter house, 24 Main Street, was built for Amos Palmer (1747-1816) after 1789 on the site of an earlier house that burned on May 24 of that year. His descendants lived in the house until 1938. It is privately owned today.

Pl. VI. What is now known as the William Terrett house, 16 Church Street, was built for John Newman of Newport, Rhode Island, after 1777. William Terrett (1745-1817) bought it in 1782, and his descendants moved it from its original location at 26 Main Street in 1836. Today it is privately owned.

Pl. VII. The front part of what is now known as Dr. Lord's Hall, 32 Main Street, was possibly built by Thomas Griffing (1730-1768) c. 1765. William Lord (1763-1852) acquired the property through a mortgage default and enlarged the house c. 1814. It is privately owned today.

Pl. VIII. The Ephraim Williams house, 174 Water Street, was built by Henry Smith (1780-1866) for Ephraim Williams Jr. (1791-1861) in 1840. Today it houses condominium apartments. See also the frontispiece.

Pl. IX. The Zebulon Stanton house, 83 Main Street, was probably built in 1786. Zebulon Stanton (1753-1828), a silversmith, had his shop in the ell at the right, which was added after 1790. The house is privately owned.

Pl. X. Parlor in the William Fellowes house, 20 Church Street, built for William Fellowes (1742/43-1827) in 1771. The house is now privately owned.

Pl. XI. The overmantel painting in the parlor of the William Sheffield house, 76 Water Street, is attributed to Jared Jessup (d. 1812). Isaac Sheffield Jr. (1725-1797) built the house for his son William (1757-1809) c. 1776. It is privately owned today.

PL XII. What is now the Old Lighthouse Museum was built as a lighthouse by John Bishop (1810-1892) in 1840. museum is managed by the Stonington Historical Society

Pl. XIII. The William Pendleton house, 1 Main Street, was built after 1831 for William (1796-1880) and Sarah Breed Pendicton (1798-1885). The gable is possibly a later addition. The house is privately owned.

Pl. XIV. The Ocean Bank (left) was built in 1851. The house at 2 Cannon Square (right) was built by Gilbert Williams Collins (1817-1865) in 1853.

Pl. XV. The Orin Doty house, 46 Main Street, was built for Jabez Stanton (1779-1816), 1808-1814. Orin Doty (1809-1884), a marble cutter and the house's third owner, acquired it in 1834. It is privately owned.

Pl. XVI. View along Gold Street The brick houses at the right, numbers 34 and 36, were built for Freeman Wallace (1811-1879) after 1845.

Fig. 1. Map of Stonington Borough, Cairn., frontispiece to Anderson's Stonington Directory 1881 (Stonington, Connecticut, 1881).

PL XVII. The Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer House, 40 Palmer Street, was designed by Gamaliel King (1795-1875) and built for Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer (1799-1877) and his brother Captain Alexander Smith Palmer (1806-1894), 1851-1852. The descendants of Alexander Palmer owned the house until 1977; in 1995 the Stonington Historical Society acquired it, and it is now the headquarters for the society and a National Historic Landmark.

PL XVIII. The Greek revival house at 33 Main Street, was built by Charles Phelps Williams (1804-1879) 1846-1848. The homestead built shortly after 1768 by Ebenezer Cobb (1742- 1823), a blacksmith, was razed in 1846. In 1849 Williams sold the house to Gurdon Pendleton (1813-1898), who subsequently sold it to his brother Harris Pendleton Jr. (1811-1890). In 1861 it was acquired by Nathan G. Smith (1820-1893), a printer whose descendants lived there until 1924. It is privately owned today.

Pl. XIX. The chapel of the Calvary Episcopal Church, 26 Church Street, was designed by Richard Upjohn (1802-1878) and built 1859-1860. It now serves as a church ball, and a new addition to the south houses a nursery school.

MARY McGRATH THACHER, a former president of the Stonington Historical Society, is the historian for the Town of Stonington and the archivist and library director of the Richard W Woolworth Library of the Stonington Historical Society.