Houses

Sutton House, Center Harbor, NH

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The home of Eliza Sutton in Center Harbor, around 1865-1885.  Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

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The house in 2015:

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This house on the present-day Whittier Highway was built in 1865 for Eben Sutton, a wool merchant in Peabody Mass., and his wife Eliza.  Eben died before the house was finished, but Eliza lived here for 24 years.  She ran a dairy farm here, using the fields across the street as pastureland.  The photo in this post, taken about 17 years after her death, shows the view from in front of her house looking across the street.  In addition to her agricultural pursuits, she was also a philanthropist, and in 1869 she donated funds to build the Eben Dale Sutton Reference Library at the Peabody Institute Library in her hometown.

The first photo was taken during the time when Eliza Sutton lived there, and the photographer was Charles Bierstadt, a 19th century photographer who specialized in stereoscopic views.  He is probably best known, though, as the older brother of landscape artist Albert Bierstadt. Most of the younger Bierstadt’s paintings were of the American west, but he did several of the White Mountains, not too far from where his brother Charles took this photograph.

The house was damaged by a fire in 1993, but it has since been restored to its original 19th century appearance and operates as the Sutton House bed and breakfast.

William King House, Suffield Connecticut (2)

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The William King House in Suffield, seen on February 17, 1938. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey collection.

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The house in 2015:

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Taken from a slightly different angle from the earlier photo in this post, the 1938 view here shows the house as it appeared when it was documented as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey.  Begun in 1933, the project was intended to provide work for unemployed photographers and architects during the Great Depression, in order to document some of the country’s historic properties.  These images and documents are now available online through the Library of Congress, and more photographs of the King House, along with detailed architectural drawings, can be found here.  The house hasn’t changed much in its exterior appearance in the past 77 years, and today it is used as a bed and breakfast, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

William King House, Suffield Connecticut (1)

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The William King House on North Street in Suffield, around 1920. Image from Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Suffield, Connecticut (1921).

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The house in 2015:

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I have found conflicting sources on exactly when this house was built and who built it; apparently there were two William Kings who were living in Suffield at the time, one of whom was known as “Ensign” and the other as “Lieutenant.”  However, according to the book that I got the first photo from, the house was owned by Ensign William King, who was born in 1722 and built the house around 1750.  King’s first wife, Sarah Fuller, died in 1744, just seven months after their marriage, and in 1747 he married Lucy Hathaway.  They had nine children, and their son Seth inherited the property after William’s death in 1791.  It remained in the King family for two more generations, until it was sold in 1883.  Today, the historic house is one of Suffield’s many well-preserved 18th century houses.  It is on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is currently the Kingsfield Bed & Breakfast.

Posthumous Sikes House, Suffield Connecticut

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The home of Posthumous Sikes, on Mapleton Avenue in Suffield, around 1920. Image from Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Suffield, Connecticut (1921).

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The house in 2015:

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The town of Suffield has an impressive collection of historic houses from the first half of the 18th century, including this one, which was built in 1743 by the curiously-named Posthumous Sikes.  The early Puritan settlers of New England would often give their children seemingly unconventional names, often preferring “Increase,” “Thankful,” and “Deliverance” to more Catholic-sounding names like Mary, James, and Peter.  In the case of “Posthumous,” it was often given to a child born after the death of his father, and for Posthumous Sikes, he was born in 1711, seven months after his father Jonathan died.  Posthumous married Rachel Adams around the same time that he built this house, and they had four children: Amos, Stephen, Shadrack, and Gideon.  Posthumous died in 1756, and his son Shadrack later owned the property.  The house appears to have remained in the Sikes family until at least the mid-1800s, and it was recognized as historic even at the time that the first photo was taken, although the sign on the tree provides the wrong date for the house.

Phelps-Hatheway House, Suffield Connecticut

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The Phelps-Hatheway House on South Main Street in Suffield, around 1920. Image from Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Suffield, Connecticut (1921).

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The house in 2015:

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The present-day view of this historic house is dominated by a massive sycamore tree that is even older than the house itself. The tree is estimated to be about 300 years old, while the house was built sometime in the mid 1700s. Sources seem to indicate either 1736 or 1761, but either way the house predates the American Revolution. It was originally owned by Abraham Burbank, and subsequently by his son, Shem, who was a wealthy Tory businessman during the American Revolution. Following the war, his loyalty to the British cost him a lot of his business, so his subsequent financial issues forced him to sell the house to Oliver Phelps. The new owner did not hold the property for too long, though, before he had his own monetary problems; Phelps sold the house around 1800 after losing money in a failed land investment.

The new owner was Asahel Hatheway, whose family owned the house for the rest of the century.  During this time, an addition was made to the north (right) side, to go along with the previous addition that Phelps had built in 1794. The house has been well-preserved over the years, even down to the rare 1794 French wallpaper that is still on the walls. Today it is owned by Connecticut Landmarks and open to the public as a museum, providing a glimpse into the 18th and 19th century life of the upper class in the Connecticut River Valley.

Samuel Warner House, Wilbraham Mass

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The Samuel Warner House on Stony Hill Road in Wilbraham, on September 3, 1923. Image from Register of the Ancestors of Samuel Warner and his Descendants (1924).

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The house in 2015:

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This house on Stony Hill Road was probably built in the late 1700s, and for many years it was home to some of my ancestors, starting with Samuel Warner Jr., my great-great-great-great-great grandfather.  He was a veteran of two wars, having served with his father in the French and Indian War, where they fought at Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Crown Point in New York.  He returned to Ticonderoga several decades later, when he was stationed at Fort Ticonderoga in 1776-1777 during the American Revolution.  His son, Samuel Warner III, later took over the farm, and lived here his entire life.  He died in 1824 and his son, Samuel Warner IV, my great-great-great grandfather, acquired the property following his marriage in 1827.  He was a fairly prominent citizen of Wilbraham, serving as a town selectman in 1857 and as a member of the Wesleyan Academy Board of Trustees from 1848 until 1858.  He died in 1859, and the house was later owned by two more generations until 1893, when it was sold to someone outside the family for the first time in probably over a century.

The first photo was taken during a family reunion for the Samuel Warner Association, which consists of descendants of the third Samuel Warner, who lived from 1763 to 1824.  Several of my family members are visible in the photo, including my great grandmother, who is standing 6th from the right, in the white outfit.  Her three daughters are seated together in the front row on the right, and my grandmother is the one furthest to the left, just to the right of the tear in the paper.

Today, the house is still there, but with significant modifications.  It now serves as offices for the Country Club of Wilbraham, which is located on the former Warner property.  There have been some significant additions behind and to the right of the house for dining and banquet facilities, but overall the historic house itself is still relatively intact on the exterior.