USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 22
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Among the land files is a deed citing that Abraham Weed was grantor to son Enos in 1756 for consideration, love, 12 acres, includ- ing dwelling house and a well of water. This may have been the house where young Seth, born in 1752, spent his boyhood days and left to take up arms in the making of a new country.
Later records read "Mathew Bouton buys an Enos Weed house in 1775," and five years later, "Mathew Bouton sells to Seth Weed 1780."
These excerpts are pieces in the puzzle. But
of certain facts we have authentic information. The house was built before the Revolutionary War. Here Seth Weed, who was commissioned lieutenant on January first, 1777, and served in a Stamford company commanded by Co- lonel Waterbury, lived and married. His wife was Hannah Andros, and his son, Seth, Jr., was born in this house. From that day until 1920, the house was owned by forebears of the late Weed family whom many of us re- member with deep affection.
Prior to the time that the house was sold by the Weeds, it was remodeled and "modern- ized." Modernizing at that period completely changed its original identity. An overhanging room was imposed on the front with a stone porch below supported by white posts. Inside, the beams were covered and the fireplaces bricked up. At one period the shingles were painted red and it was known as the Red House.
When Mrs. Dillon Brown purchased the house in 1920, she took the first steps toward reconstruction by exposing beams in the ceil- ings and uncovering the fireplaces.
It was through the efforts of Mrs. A. C. Chapman that the restoration of the house to its original character took place. During the 23 years of her ownership, she and her children dreamed, worked for, and achieved the final result which is an authentic example of an early American dwelling. By the addition of a new wing, she succeeded in making it livable in our modern sense without destroying the charm of its antiquity.
So carefully was this wing, which contains the garage as well as extra first and second floor rooms, planned that in every detail it is an integral part of the house. The gambrel roof with the two upper dormer windows is an exact replica of the original house. Mrs. Chap- man remembers, in the days of construction, looking out and seeing her sons and the builder lying flat on the grass in order to view the house from all points to attain the correct lines. The result is that, at every angle, the merging of the new and old is well-proportioned and symmetrical.
On two sides of the house are the stone
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walls so familiar to the Connecticut country- side. The two trees which spread their branches on the roadside, judging from their great size, in all probability could have been planted by an early settler. The few smaller trees and bushes comprise the landscaping of the front lawn.
The garage doors in the wing at the front of the house are fashioned to resemble barn doors, overhung with wisteria vines and flanked by lilac and dogwood bushes.
The front door of the house is Dutch style, split horizontally across the center. It is made of two thicknesses of wood, the outer boards being vertical and the inner horizontial. At the top is a row of old lights, comprised of six square panes of glass. A transom such as this is found on houses dating back to 1700 or earlier.
At the back of the house stands an old well close to what was originally the kitchen door. Around this door, climbs an American Pillar rose bush to spread its pink and white blos- soms over the roof.
Within the house are many indications of its 18th century structure, such as the old oak beams in the ceilings, the vertical gunstock beams in the corners, and partitions of hand- made panelling.
Of prime interest is the massive triangular chimney made of Connecticut fieldstone which, based in the cellar, divides into three fireplaces on the first floor, rises an uncovered mass of stone through the second floor, to emerge through the center of the shingled roof.
The apex of this triangular chimney is at the partition between the two front rooms. In each of these rooms, living room and bedroom, are the smaller fireplaces, while in the present dining room, originally the kitchen, which ex- tends across the back of the house, is the large fireplace, the center and focus of family life in the early days. The fireplaces are made of roughly dressed stone with large smooth slabs forming the hearth. Heavy wood lintels ex- tend across the top.
Recessed in the back of the large "kitchen" fireplace is a traditional bake oven. It is built
of brick with a roof arched in front, extending to a circular, domed interior. A fire was lighted in the oven and after the bricks were hot, the ashes were raked out and the food to be baked was placed inside. A heavy oak door was in- serted in the opening and the oven was left to do its work.
Adjoining the kitchen is a small room which in all probability was known in the old days as the borning room. It was well situated here for the use of the heat and facilities of the kitchen.
All the rooms on the second floor encircle the chimney which stands, a majestic mound of stone, in the center of the hall. At one time, the chimney was enclosed with beaver board which narrowed and darkened the hall. This enclosure was removed when the house was restored, giving additional light and space to the upstairs.
Deep in the cellar, under the old part of the house, the chimney spreads to enormous pro- portions on its foundation. There, the center oak beams are locked firmly to it. Mrs. Chap- man told me that during the hurricane, when most houses were shaking under the impact of the wind, this old house merely shuddered a little in its vitals and gathered itself more firmly around the anchoring chimney.
Now the old homestead is entering into a new period. Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy C. Martin, the present owners and occupants, have brought to it not only an intense interest in early Americana, but a choice collection of antique furniture.
For some time they had been "prospecting" for an old Colonial house. Meanwhile, they were carefully collecting their authentic pieces until such time as they would succeed in their search. It is indeed a happy circumstance that brings together a house and owners who pos- sess a real perception and appreciation of its old-time character.
So easily, as the years roll by and new gen- erations come and go, old names and historic landmarks are forgotten. In New Canaan, that would not appear likely to occur. Through the efforts of the Historical Society, documents,
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records and accounts are being carefully pre- served. As in the case of the Weed homes on Weed Street, the continuity between the past
and present will persist and their identities will remain for the cognizance of new families and new times.
Edwin Elerman 1948
THE GEORGE T. BYE HOUSE
THOMAS HAMILTON ORMSBEE, Author
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[March 18, 1948]
(Reprinted from "House Beautiful" Summer Number, 1941)
Christening a child Jonathan Edward by no means insures that he will be called that. His friends may decide on "Nate," or "Fat," or even "Fuzzy" and, except for business and legal matters, he will be so labeled to the end
of his days. Some houses are like that too. Mr. and Mrs. George T. Bye christened their New Canaan, Conn., home "Trinity Pass," in honor of the road on which it is located, but the late Heywood Broun's name for it was "Ten Per
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Cent Manor." Other writing neighbors favored "The Tithery," in bantering reference to the owner's business as authors' agent. From an historical point of view, this latter nickname is singularly apt.
Located at the head of Laurel Lake, a res- ervoir of comparatively recent building, this eighteenth-century Connecticut house has had a percentage tradition practically from the day of its building. Where the lake now extends for a mile and a half south from the Byes' door- way was once Dantown. You will not find it on any map for it was just a local name for a well-defined area where lived about 25 fami- lies who combined farming with a trade. Most of these farmer craftsmen were basket mak- ers; a few made shoes, and one or two were coopers. By the turn of the nineteenth century the little settlement had its own church, a store, a district school and a mill where neigh- bors came to get grain ground, logs sawed and cider pressed. The mill owner, a most impor- tant member of the community, lived in the Bye house and earned his living by taking an eighth part of the products brought to his mill as toll for his services.
For the beginnings of Dantown, however, one must go back to the late seventeenth cen- tury. when Francis and Elizabeth Dan de- cided that Stamford on the Sound was too crowded, and pioneered ten miles back into the hills to an upland valley with a good-sized brook running through it. There in 1685, they bought some land and settled down. By 1740 certain Stamford citizens had discovered that the brook known as Mill River was capable of furnishing enough water power for a mill and were buying shares in the project.
One of them was Charles Southerlin. In 1745 he bought a parcel of land that has been identified as the site of both the mill and the Bye house. Obviously he built both, for when he sold his holding to Nathaniel Seeley, in 1763, the deed mentioned fruit trees, path to the mill and so forth. The mill at first served mcrely to grind local grain; then primitive machinery for sawing lumber was added; and after the American Revolution cider making
and distilling of applejack became profitable adjuncts to a thriving business. In fact, cider was a favored beverage of the area. In the journal of the Rev. William Drummond, third minister of the New Canaan church, kept dur- ing the early months of 1772, we read: "Visited Several, Cumstock, Benedict & Richards. Was kindly received by all. Drank cyder in every house." David Stevens, grandson of Nathaniel Seeley and occupant of the Bye house, was also on his professional visiting list. On Febru- ary 20 he noted: "Visited & dined with Dav. Stevens," and only six days later, "Rode to David Stevens. Called at Abr. Weed's. Dined with Charles Weed. Returned. Snowed heavy."
The American Revolution made little mark on Dantown except for a brief foray into near- by Pound Ridge by the able-bodied men of the settlement when the alarm was raised that a squad of Tarleton's raiders were hunting for Major Lockwood, great-grandfather of Robert Chambers. After it was over, the mill resumed a greater activity than ever. Also, by 1787, the New Canaan shepherd of souls had been superseded in Dantown by Henry Eames, a convert to Methodism, and the first Methodist Church in New England had been built less than a quarter of a mile south of the Bye house. This was to prove an over-ambitious venture in a community by no means committed to only one variety of religious experience and in 1841 the building was torn down. The site is now pasture land with a few old headstones marking what was once a churchyard.
Meanwhile, millers came and went in the cottage beside Mill River. From 1825 to about 1860, Lewis Joncs, popularly known as “Miller Lew," lived there and found the collecting of tithes sufficiently profitable to earn for him the local title of "Banker" Jones. But Civil War days saw the association between house and mill broken, for Miller Lew sold his cottage and went to live in a smaller one close by the mill. By the early 1800's buzz of saw and hum of whcel were heard no more. And in the house built by Charles Southerlin, Mr. and Mrs. James Scofield had settled down for a sojourn of 40 ycars.
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The present owners naturally did not know the history of their house when they bought it from Mrs. Scofield back in 1923. But they did realize, even the first time they saw it, that it was pre-Revolutionary and that it had not been injured by late Victorian efforts to re- build or modernize. It was guiltless of plumb- ing, heating or lighting. Save for a small, one- story addition at the rear, the house was prac- tically as Southerlin built it-a story-and-a-half farm cottage, a little wider than deep, with a large central chimney and two big fireplaces on the ground floor. Even the old clapboards were the original ones of native oak and chest- nut. Only one Victorian touch marred the whole: That was a front porch which had been added in the 1860's but, fortunately, Mrs. Sco- field was able to sketch and describe the orig- inal one.
Some people buy a house, decide what changes they want made, hand the whole mat- ter over to architect, interior decorator, land- scape gardener and other professionals and then go off and take a trip somewhere until everything is ready. It is a perfectly good method if one's home is just an impersonal sort of way station. But the Byes decided to get acquainted with their house before decid- ing on any changes. So they moved right in and took up life as it was lived before the effete days of modern plumbing, heating and elec- trical contrivances.
It was soon apparent that fewer and larger rooms on the ground floor were essential for present-day living conditions, but how to get them without losing the charm of a pre-Re- volutionary interior was a problem that could not be decided quickly. One stepped through the front door into an entrance hall of box-like proportions because of the central chimney which rose core-like, from cellar to roof. On the right a door opened into a parlor; on the left was a sitting room. Then on the opposite side of the core from the entrance hall were two bedrooms, a narrow passageway with en- closed stairways leading to cellar and second floor, and a kitchen. From the latter, which was directly back of the sitting room, one en-
tered a one-story extension which had been added to the house about a hundred years be- fore. Here was an additional kitchen, pantry, and enclosed porch and a most unusual fea- ture, a never-failing shallow well enclosed in a separate sentry-box-like addition at the rear far corner.
On the second floor a squarish hall at the rear and behind the central chimney accom- modated the flight of stairs connecting the two floors. Opening from this hall to the front were two fairly large bedrooms and at the rear, two very small ones.
Such was the house as the Byes found it and as they lived in it while the first changes were being made by local carpenters, masons and men of other building trades whose families had lived in the neighborhood since the eigh- teenth century. Also, contrary to the usual pro- cedure, the new owners acted as their own architects. Mrs. Bye planned the changes and Mr. Bye located the workmen.
With the removal of a partition and the orig- inal stairway, sitting room and kitchen became one large room and a new open stairway was built behind the central chimney. This took most of the space occupied by the larger of the two ground-floor bedrooms. What was left was then combined with that of the smaller one and made into a kitchen. This, of course, opened into the parlor which now became the dining room. By these simple but intelligent changes an attractively proportioned ground- floor plan evolved with a living room measur- ing 33 feet from front to rear.
Today this is a very cheerful, homey room with its huge old fireplace to lend cheer on chilly days or evenings and its many small- paned windows through which sunlight streams and is further accentuated by the light- giving old ivory paint of the walls, an effect achieved by mixing all the colors of the spec- trum in proper proportions. A grand piano stands in approximately the same place as did the cook stove in the old kitchen. In the nook back of the stairway, formerly the pantry, there is an electric organ before which Mr. Bye relaxes after a busy day.
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On the second floor the rearrangement of the rooms followed the same rule, that of dis- turbing the original plan as little as possible. The two bedrooms at the front were left un- changed. At the rear, one of the small bed- rooms, slightly reduced in size by a new parti- tion, became a bathroom. Some of the old hall- way was converted into a large closet, a detail left out of eighteenth-century houses, and what remained provided space for the new stairway and a much smaller hall that gave access to all of the rooms. The remaining small bedroom was enlarged by the addition of the original stairway area and was converted into a sewing room. Lastly, the old-time aversion to the deadly night air was obviated by cutting six low windows under the eaves, four at the front and two at the rear. These with the exist- ing full-sized ones in the north and south walls provided all the rooms with light and air from two sides.
Some years later a service wing was added at the north. This is also a story and a half in height but slightly lower than the original house. The ground floor includes a pantry opening off the dining room, a large kitchen, a cold room and a stairway to the second floor where there is a servant's room and bath and an additional bath which opens into the large north bedroom in the original house. With the completion of this wing, what had been the kitchen was lined with bookcases and closets and became Mr. Bye's study. Here he keeps under lock and key his collection of modern inscribed first editions of the books which he has marketed as an authors' agent.
Also to the north of the house, but separate from it, stands a story-and-a-half garage which has likewise undergone gradual enlargement. On the second floor is Mrs. Bye's studio, where she paints and works in pottery. The main floor in addition to housing two cars, has a stone- flagged, glass-enclosed room with southern exposure from which one looks across the grounds to Laurel Lake. Here Mr. and Mrs. Bye, both ardent nature enthusiastis, frequent- ly sit to watch the birds as they feed or fly about from one tree or bush to another. For
the whole place is a bird sanctuary with feed- ing stations, shelters and the like.
Just as the house has grown step by step since its purchase in 1923, the Bye land hold- ings have been gradually increased to some- thing over a hundred acres, much of it wood- land, through which flows the Mill River. The grounds surrounding the house have the charm and simplicity that can result only from careful planning. Plants, trees and shrubs have the appearance of having just grown there but are still so arranged as to give the owners a certain amount of privacy. And that is a real achievement since the property faces on a curving highway for almost a quarter of a mile.
Back from the house to the river, the grounds are well kept, the turf broken by flower beds, clumps of shrubbery and trees. On the other side of the river is the woodland part. Here, slightly above the site of the old Dantown millpond, are the picnic grounds with out-of-door fireplaces. Further in the woodland paths and trails have been cut and two or three old wood-road bridges have been reconstructed, but nature has not been dis- turbed. It is wild land and except for a log cabin looking down on a wooded stretch of river that locally has always been called "Para- dise," nothing has been changed.
But remembering that even woodland sim- plicity is not achieved without effort, various spots have been named for books, tithes from which financed the work. For instance, the pool by the picnic ground is "Cradle of the Deep," for Joan Lowell's tale of life afloat. The bridges across the river are known as "Pons Romanoff," for the two books written by the Grand Duchess Marie; and the paths with easy grades constitute the "Alexander Wooll- cott Water Level Route." In the treatment of both house and grounds, Mr. and Mrs. Bye's motto seems to have been, "Work with the material at hand and not against it." How well they have succeeded may be found in Donald Culross Peattie's dedication of his book "Green Laurels." It reads: "To the friend who in the green dusk led me from Trinity Pass to Paradise."
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Thatthise
THE HAIT-CHICHESTER-ANDERSON- MAYO HOUSE
MRS. GERALD I. CUTLER, Author
GEORGE M. SHELLHASSE, Artist [March 25, 1948]
This house stands on the south side of West Road where Greenley Road joins it, and on the left side of this house, as its stands today, hidden behind its rather Victorian and fancy facade, may still be seen part of the roof-line and the central chimney of one of the early houses of New Canaan. This original house was one of the typical story and a half build-
ings that were common hereabouts in the early eighteenth century.
The original house was probably built about 1725 or 1727, and was the homestead of Lieu- tenant James Hait. James Hait, born some- time between 1700 and 1708, was the great- grandson of the founder of the Hait-or Hoyt- families in this part of Connecticut. His father,
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This old photograph shows about how the house looked when Francis Chichester advertised it for rent in the "ERA" of March 27, 1869.
who came from Stamford, was one of the orig- inal proprietors of the lands in Canaan Parish, and owned a great many acres.
James inherited much of this land and pur- chased more from other proprietors in the dis- trict. In fact, he acquired an estate of some 350 acres. He built his house in the midst of his fields at the point where Greenley and West Roads now meet. The Noroton River ran close beside it on the west and the Perambulation Line nearby on the east. He lived there during most of his lifetime for, although the house and one-half of his 350 acres were given to his son James, it is probable that he continued to live there too, as was often the custom in those days.
It was the first James Hait-or "Lieutenant Hait" as he was known, undoubtedly for his services in the Indian Wars-who in 1764 gave a plot of land not far from his homestead to the "Professors of the Church of England" where the first Episcopal church in Canaan Parish was erected.
When the Revolutionary War began, he and his sons, the aforementioned James, and Syl- vanus, being strong British sympathizers, fled to New Brunswick, and their properties were
confiscated by the state. Later James and Syl- vanus made an attempt to buy back their in- heritance but they were not permitted to do so.
Who ultimately acquired these confiscated acres of James Hait, when they were resold by the state, it is not possible to determine from available materials for research. One source supplied by the Connecticut State Library, may or may not concern the particular piece of land we are discussing but which was certainly adjacent to it. This is from the manuscript of the Connecticut Revolutionary War Archives and is a report by John Davenport to the Gen- cral Assembly of the May session, 1784, and is about the confiscated estates which he has sold:
"To the honbl Committee of the Paytable for the State of Connecticut
"According to the Act of Assembly I have sold the following Confiscated Estates/vizt ... (Among others )
"One piece of land that did belong to Silvanus Hait Absentee, being the one quarter part of about sixty Eight Acres of land lying in said Stamford in Canaan society bounded Westerly by Noroton- River Southerly by Timothy Reeds land in part and partly by the Perambulation line between Stamford & Norwalk and Northly by an highway
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excepting and reserving the one quarter part of all the produce of the said one quarter part of said land to be delivered to James Hait the father of the said Silvanus Hait during ye term of his Natural life ... and should the present wife of the said James Hait/vizt/Mary Hait survive the said James then the one quarter part of the produce of said one quarter part of land now sold to be delivered to her during the term of her Natural life together with the one quarter part of the buildings thereon.
"Sold to David Hait ... for ... £37.8.0 "Lawful silver money."
The David Hait mentioned was another son of Lieutenant James Hait, brother of James and Sylvanus, and a member of the family who remained a patriot.
Thereafter, at some undetermined later date, this house and its surrounding acres came into the hands of the Chichester family. It would seem to have been a natural purchase, as the Chichesters owned considerable lands to the south and west of it, and farmed there throughout most of the 19th century.
When, in 1889, the house and 26 acres were purchased by F. W. Anderson of New York, it was from the estate of Francis Chichester through one of his heirs, Mrs. Anna J. Whalley.
For some time before its purchase by Mr. An- derson the house had been leased, and no one of the Chichester family still inhabited it. A family named Schweitzer was living there at the time of Mr. Anderson's purchase.
It was now that the transformation of the little clapboard farmhouse was undertaken. Wings and porches and decorative shingles were added, although the central chimney, with its three fireplaces, was kept as the main feature. At this time, too, the surrounding land was improved and planted with lawns and or- namental shrubs and additional trees which have now grown to great size.
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