USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 55
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Today, its dignified pillared facade, its cy- press-spiked gardens pay tribute to the crea- tive gifts of the New Canaan architect, Calvin Kiessling, while the wide-boarded old floors, the original fireplaces and hideaway cup- boards bring back memories of the genera-
tions of Weeds who lived in it. It is an unusual and interesting example of something more common in England-the house which grows and changes with the generations which live in it.
There is a tantalizing bit of mystery about the reasons back of the building of the house, and about the coming of the Charles Weed family to New Canaan in the first place. Cou- sins of the better-known Weeds who settled the southern reaches of Weed Street, the Char- les Weeds do not even appear on the standard genealogies of this prolific family.
Their original move from Stamford was not to New Canaan but to Darien, and they first
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appear in local history when a Charles Weed signs the "Five Mile river petition" (October 2, 1736) which asked permission to found a separate church in Darien. Both Charles and his wife Susannah are listed among the mem- bers of that church as late as June 5, 1744.
Fifteen years later, however, this first Char- les' will shows that the family had not only moved to New Canaan, but built or bought one house here, and started to build another- almost certainly the present Adams house, which Charles' will describes as "the new frame house yet is now in building." His orig- inal house may have been on the east side of Weed Street, since his son's will mentioned acreage and a "shop" on that side.
The bulk of his property, however, lay on the west, on the Stamford side of the Peram- bulation Line which then divided Norwalk from Stamford, and which cut north imme- diately in front of his "frame house." Charles' family remained citizens of Canaan Parish in Stamford until the legal formation of New Ca- naan in 1801.
Like his descendants, Charles practiced farming. He left some 150 acres, bounded on the south by the "new highway" (Wahackme Road, which he helped to lay out), on the north and west by neighbors including the Pennoy- ers, Thomas Nichols, Charles and James Hait, and Samuel Belden. His sons Enos, Jehiel and Thadeus inherited much of this land, together with his holdings in Westchester County, while the eldest son, another Charles, got the new house and 54 acres of good farmland as his "bearthright." (The three daughters had to make do with such items as "smoothing irons," "Dutch whells," and pewter platters).
Both this original Charles Weed and his son, who lived on for some 40 years more in the new house, were people of considerable dig- nity and importance in the Stamford of their day. The name of Charles Weed appears on the Stamford Committee for the Relief of the Poor in Boston in 1775, and on the Stamford Com- mittee of Safety during the Revolution, on a committee for the relief of soldiers' families and as Selectman and representative in Hartford.
A delightful record exists of one committee- including James Hait, Abraham Weed, James Finch and Deodate Davenport-with which Charles Weed laid out Wahackme Road, letting it run near the dividing line between the lands of Charles and Abraham Weed, "marking" and "stoning" it and making it "2 rods wide except- ing only some Five places where the badness of the land made it necessary that it should be something more than 2 rods wide"-a piece of vagueness which, in view of the fact that they immediately presented it to the town of Stam- ford, would make a modern lawyer blanch.
Susannah Weed apparently lived on in the house after her husband's death, with her son Charles and her daughter-in-law Elizabeth Hait, daughter of David Hait. After the pleas- ant custom of the day, she inherited two rooms in her late husband's house, together with the "Great Bay at the east end of the Barn," be- sides such useful items as the "feather bed, boulster and white cubbard," the "new cedar pail and pigin pail," the "basons" and porrin- gers, butter tubs and "cream potts" which were a widow's right. (One wonders who wore the "lethor briches" and "everlasting briches" Charles' will also mentions).
After the death of the original Charles, the Charles Weeds continued to prosper in their "frame house." Young Charles and his Eliza- beth raised at least five children in it-Thadeus, Bethiah, Hannah, Enos and Charles, Jr., who was probably the Charles Weed who fought the War of 1812 in the company commanded by Nehemiah Lockwood.
Charles, Jr., and his wife met tragedy. Their eldest son, the fourth Charles, died before his father in 1821, at the age of 22. Another son, Nehemiah Edwin, inherited the house and shared it with two surviving sisters, Elizabeth and Lucy. By the time Nehemiah inherited, in 1824, the Weed family was extremely prosper- ous. It seems likely that they had supplemented their farming income with selling-and per- haps using the "Dutch whell" to weave-cotton and linen cloth. The inventory of the 1824 will instances about 400 yards of "fine" and "coarse" cloth, and mentioned "14 acres and shop" east
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of Weed Street, in addition to "farming in- terests," cattle and oxen.
The increased cash income of the family is shown in the list of items the house now con- tained-the "8 silver teaspoons," the "12 wine glasses and decanter," the Scott's Commentary on the Bible-illustrated, and, at $7, worth more than some of the livestock.
In the old house at the turn of the century, we see, too, people who are far better dressed than old Charles with his "everlasting briches." Charles, Jr., wore a "leghornd hat" worth a full $1.90 in the inventory; a "napt hat"; "striped pantaloons"-perhaps to attend meetings of the Congregational Society; woolen stockings, and a greatcoat worth $6. He even owned “seven cravats."
With the tenureship of Nehemiah Weed we move down to more recognizable, Victorian times. Nehemiah himself survives, rather touchingly, in the "N E W" and abortive "New" he scratched on the dining room windows-per- haps before his mother Rachel caught him at it. He lived, unmarried, until 1866, serving on the board of the local school district, and as select- man from 1859 to 1863. It was either Nehemiah or his father who enlarged the old house-al- most doubling its original size and leaving a seam which still shows in the old plaster and woodwork.
When Nehemiah died (leaving stock and bonds to the Congregational Society and vari- ous missionary groups), his sisters, Miss Eliza- beth and Miss Lucy became the last Weed owners of the Charles Weed place. Wealthy by the standards of the day, they held many mortgages in New Canaan, owned stock in the Stamford and New Canaan banks and the Norwalk Insurance Company, and had some- how come into possession of a good deal of land north of the original holding on Weed Street. Perhaps they had lived there during Nehemiah's lifetime, for after his death they sold 60 acres running north to West Road, "re- serving the right to occupy the Carriage House."
Little is known about Miss Lucy Weed to- day. Church records and local tradition agree
that both spinsters lived for a time, at least, in New York City. But Miss Lucy must have died in the old house, for the inventory of her will in 1877 reveals a fully furnished house, includ- ing featherbeds and "18 linen pillowcases," a modern housewife might envy.
The inventory also gives us a glimpse of the way this last branch of the Charles Weeds lived, from the dozen shawls (check, plaid, cashmere), and the "striped mohair" and silk dresses with "crape" and lace, to the teaspoons (now diminished, in a way any woman will un- derstand, to six), and "the old tea tray."
In good New England style, the downstairs parlor contained six uncompromisingly straight chairs and a mahogany table, with only one rocking chair: but the kitchen, where one im- agines Miss Lucy sitting over her cup of tea, had two cosy rocking chairs and, the inventory adds, one pair of gold spectacles.
Miss Lucy survives best, perhaps, in her church charities, which were numerous. She left more than $12,000 to the Congregational Society and missionary work, plus $3,000 for the building of a lecture room at the Congrega- tional Church-a kindness memorialized in the plaque on the meeting room wall which reads: "Sacred to the memory of Lucy Weed, who provided by her Christian benevolence for the erection of this Chapel." From Miss Anna St. John, we learn that the aforementioned "Eliza- beth" Weed must have been a misprint or a mistake. She feels confident that Miss Lucy's sister's name was Sarah Julia, who married Minot Ayres in 1843. They lived in the white house opposite the school, and "Sarah Julia's" grave is in the old Carter Street Cemetery.
For unknown reasons, the house on Weed Street now went, under the terms of Miss Lucy's will to one of New Canaan's several William St. Johns: a man then living in Vir- ginia. Perhaps he was a favorite cousin of Miss Lucy's, for her uncle Enos' children had in- termarried with Carters, and the Carters in turn with St. Johns.
In any case, William St. John sold the house six years later, and perhaps without ever living there, to a George H. Wildman, who is be-
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lieved to have been one of the many "Dan- bury Wildmans" but who was, at the time, liv- ing in Yonkers, New York. In spite of Miss Lucy's previous sale, the property now in- cluded 82 acres.
Mr. Wildman lived and farmed there for 13 years, a "very smoth shaven man with a bright red wig" which seemed sensational to two boys named Stephen Hoyt and William Francis Weed. The land around the old house was still very open, the road very bad: Mr. Weed can still remember the time when, coming home from some party, young Horace Wildman and he got stuck in the road with the oxen-and had to walk home.
The old farming days were about over, how- ever, and New Canaan beginning to get its 20th century look. Between 1895 and 1898 Mrs. Lawrence D. Alexander-whose father, a New Canaan St. John, had moved south and who was perhaps a cousin of old Miss Lucy- bought the Charles Weed place together with a great deal of neighboring Chichester acreage, remodeled the present Owens house on the Wahackme corner, built what is now the Szyk house, and turned the old "frame house" into a tenant house for her employes.
For 26 years, the ancient house-now badly run down-was occupied by Alexander em- ployes, by outside tenants, and sometimes by two families at once. At least one such family still remembers how cordially they disliked the battered old house, painted a barn red, un- heated and uninhabitable on winter days-and to modern bodies-upstairs.
Then, in 1923, the "frame house" entered its present renaissance. It was bought, together with some four acres of the original land, by Benjamin P. Vanderhoef, of Dun & Bradstreet. Here Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhoef lived for sev- eral years together with her sister, Miss Maud Mason, a still-life painter of great distinction.
The job of rejuvenation and remodeling went to Calvin Kiessling, the distinguished New Canaan architect. Using the ancient house and its century-old addition as a sort of core of operation, Mr. Kiessling lowered and ex- tended the roof line to give a warmer effect,
set pillars across the front, and brought down various old outbuildings to form wings and extensions.
The old barn where Susannah Weed kept the "great East bay" became Miss Mason's studio, with a flight of steps leading up to her own apartment. An old shed was metamor- phosed into a garden and tool room; another into a garage. Inside the main part of the house, two rooms were joined together to make the present living room, and a modern fireplace added.
A loggia-the old horse stalls-was used north of the living room to connect with the additions. The original kitchen became the dining room, keeping the old glass in the small- paned windows, the classic New England fire- place with its original mantle, and the hearth- stone, one huge slab of marble, mellowed to a golden-brown. To the southwest, back of the dining room, a small study also has the original fireplace and cupboards. Another ancient fire- place, in what is now the kitchen, has been boarded up.
The balanced masses and classic lines of the Vanderhoef house made it a favorite with architectural writers at once. The house ap- peared in The Architect in 1924, in House and Garden in 1926, in Decorative Arts in 1927. It was pictured in the 13th Edition of the Ency- clopaedia Brittanica as an example of colonial architecture at its best.
The dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard, George H. Edgell, wrote of it in "American Architecture Today": "A freer ver- sion of Dutch Colonial. ... Here a two- storied portico, for which there is no precedent in Dutch Colonial and which is more remini- scent of English work, is used to give dignity and shelter to the facade. The tilted roof which covers it, however, the broad clapboarding and the shape of the chimneys and general propor- tions are characteristic of the Hudson Valley type."
The gardens of the house, designed by Mrs. Vanderhoef and Miss Mason, have long been famous. Beginning with a flagged terrace back of the house, they rise on several levels up the
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hillside to a gazebo, the beds set decoratively among apple trees, seen in glowing color through the dark arches of a line of cedars which are reminiscent of Italian gardens.
In 1941, the Vanderhoef house was bought by Mr. and Mrs. R. Morton Adams, who, ex- cept for a new heating system, have kept the main house as it was. The four Adams chil- dren-12 year old Robert, Jr., 11 year old Rich- ard, 8 year old Stephen and year old Mercedes -play in what was Miss Mason's studio, and a
separate, self-contained apartment for guests has been built into the former garden and tool rooms back of the northern wing.
Mr. Adams, a patent lawyer with the firm of Pennie, Edmonds, Morton, Barrows and Taylor, has bought more acreage on both sides of Weed Street. A small lake, suitable for chil- dren's boats, is being finished across the road, perhaps near the very spot where Charles Weed's dry goods "shop" once stood.
THE BOUTON-KEELER- KIESSLING HOUSE
CARLTON S. RAYMOND, JR., Author
CALVIN KIESSLING, Artist
[May 10, 1951]
A short distance from the village, on the south side of Cooper Lockwood's Hill, stands one of the oldest houses in New Canaan. Cooper Lockwood's Hill, so called in the 1800's be- cause John Lockwood made barrels and casks at the corner of Summer Street, is commonly known by this generation as East Avenue Hill and on its crest you will recognize our pictur- esque landmark now occupied by the Mar- quette DeBarrys and owned by Calvin Kies- sling.
Somewhat modernized by Mr. Kiessling in 1920, the transformation, from an old farm- house of forbidding lines into a comfortable, architecturally pleasing country house, was pictured with before-and-after views in the January 1924 issue of House and Garden maga- zine.
By extending the roof in the front and rear and supporting it with tall columns and mov- ing the front porch to the westerly side to bal- ance the kitchen wing on the easterly end, the "high neck" farmhouse appearance was elimin- ated. In the interior, the modern conveniences of electricity, plumbing and heating were in-
stalled and larger rooms were created by re- moving partitions.
The original wide board pine floors, some of which are 22 inches in width, still remain throughout the house. The third floor reveals the hewn timbers put together with wood pins. Another interesting feature on the third floor was the former smoke room. Now closed off, it was a chamber approximately three feet by four feet, vented to the chimney, with iron cross bars used to hang the meats for the smok- ing process.
The central chimney with a dutch oven orig- inally had two fireplaces on the first floor and one fireplace in a bedroom on the second floor. One first floor fireplace which was set in the middle wall was enclosed with cupboards and book shelves and the upstairs fireplace was also closed off. In the remodeling, all the old paneling was carefully preserved and the sev- eral unaltered features testify to its colonial origin and tend to preserve the old colonial at- mosphere.
The land history reveals that in 1748 John Bouton acquired 11 acres with no holdings
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1.
The Bouton-Keeler-Kiessling House
thereon from Samuel Gruman and David Com- stock, who were large land owners in the Parish. It appears that said John Bouton built a house here between 1758 and 1761.
The Boutons were a prominent tribe in the colonial days and had a traditional if not fac- tual history. From 1350, the military and court records abound with the Bouton name for two centuries. Nicholas Bouton, who bore the title of Count Chamilly, Baron Montague de Naton, born about 1580, was the father of Harard and John (who were twins ) and Noel Bouton. They were Huguenots and refugees during the violent persecutions of the Protestants by the Roman Catholics during the predominance of the Guises in France.
John Bouton, son, as is supposed, of the Count Nicholas Bouton, was a Huguenot and during the existence of the great persecution fled to England, where the government was
offering to send emigrants to America, on con- dition they would swear allegiance to the Crown of England.
A registry of such emigrants was kept at London and as only one person by the Bouton name is found on that registry, embracing a period of 100 years, from 1600 to 1700, it is supposed that said person was this same John Bouton and that all the families of Boutons in this country prior to 1700, were descended from said John Bouton, who embarked from Gravesend, England, in the barque "Assur- ance," in July, 1635, and landed at Boston, Mass., in December, 1635.
This same John Bouton had three wives, Joan Turney, Abigail Marvin and the widow Mary Stevenson. It appears that he settled in the Norwalk area sometime around the year 1650 with his second wife, Abigail Marvin. The many descendant children of this mar-
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riage, and his subsequent marriage to the wi- dow Mary Stevenson, were prominent figures in New Canaan's early history.
John Bouton, Jr., son of John and Abigail, and his two sons, John and Nathaniel, were listed as founders of the Congregational Church in 1733. It also appears that the John Bouton who built this landmark was a grand- son of this same John Bouton and his third wife, the widow Mary Stevenson.
From the Boutons there follow several changes in ownership and parceling of the larger tract. In 1772, when the Rev. William Drummond made his famous "Visitation," he noted John Stone living in this house with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Eunice.
Through the first half of the 19th century, it appears there was considerable speculation with this property, with no one family owning or living in the house for any great length of time. The chain of title reveals that through the period from 1798 to 1854 the house came into possession of many prominent New Ca- naan families.
Jonathan Kellogg, Theophilus Hanford, Jared and Abigail Seymour, Ezra Benedict, Woolsey Buris, Elliott T. Raymond, Joseph Bouton, George Hoyt and Phoebe Comstock were all owners through these 50-odd years. The next span of 60-odd years reveals the real history of family living in this old colonial landmark.
In 1854, a young couple from Ridgefield, John and Ruth Keeler, bought this house from Phoebe Comstock and settled down to raise their children and to make this their life-long home. They were both born in Ridgefield, John on June 11, 1816, and Ruth Sherwood on August 8, 1815. They married in Ridgefield on October 28, 1834, at the young ages of 19 and 18. They lived there for the next 20 years, where seven of their nine children were born. After coming to New Canaan in 1854, they lived continuously in this house until their deaths, John in 1880 and Ruth in 1888.
They had five sons, Edward S., Theodore, John W., Charles R., and William Irving and four daughters, Harriet A., Sarah A., Elizabeth
Phyllis and Caroline. Only one daughter, Har- riet, ever married. Born in Ridgefield on June 30, 1840, she married Justus Fitch Hoyt, the Blind Miller's son, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in New Canaan. They had one daugh- ter, Sarah Lockwood Keeler Hoyt, born in New Canaan on March 26, 1866, and now living in Ridgefield.
Elizabeth Phyllis Keeler, born in Ridgefield on July 4, 1848, was a school teacher and taught in Weston until 1888 when she returned home to help care for her ailing mother. Phyllis, as she was called, died in 1902, only four years after her mother's death. Sarah, born in Ridge- field on May 27, 1842, and Caroline, born in Ridgefield on August 23, 1850, both remained at home and lived in this house the longest of any of the family. Of these two maiden Keeler daughters, vague recollections invite the pen of an imaginative novelist.
Distinctly Victorian, they might have fitted into some of those charming pictures of re- fined ultra conservatives one recalls from Cran- ford. Miss Caroline is said to have never left the place since her childhood. They watched the world change while they guarded their traditions behind curtained windows in quiet seclusion.
Miss Sarah died in 1913 leaving Miss Caro- line alone in the Keeler homestead. It was at this time that Miss Sarah Keeler Hoyt, pre- viously mentioned as the daughter of Justus Fitch Hoyt and Harriet Keeler Hoyt, returned to live with her Aunt Caroline. While Miss Caroline continued to live in quiet seclusion, Miss Sarah Hoyt assumed the duties and re- sponsibilities of running the household.
One of the cherished memories of preparing this paper will be the friendly visit with Miss Hoyt who assisted me greatly with information about the background of the Keeler family and the early history of their house. Eighty-five years old this past March, she conversed with an inspiring twinkle in her eye about New Canaan.
It was Miss Hoyt's family that owned the property where Lakeview Cemetery is now located. This land was turned over to the
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Methodist Church of New Canaan by the Hoyts for use as burial grounds and it eventu- ally became the possession of the New Canaan Cemetery Association.
Miss Hoyt remained with Miss Caroline until apple blossom time in May, 1920, when the Keeler house was sold to the present owner, Calvin Kiessling. Miss Caroline, for the first time in over a half century, left her home and went to Westfield, N. J., to spend the remain- ing five years of her life with her niece, Marion Holmes Keeler.
The Keeler house was the first home of Calvin Kiessling and his family in New Ca- naan. They resided there for ten years before moving to their present home on Wahackme Road. They came from New York City looking for a country home and Mr. Kiessling, being a distinguished architect, saw the possibilities in the Keeler farmhouse and the job of reju-
venation and remodeling was undertaken with a great deal of pleasure and pride.
The acquisition of the Keeler house by the Kiessling family preserved for the present the long historical background established by such former owners as the Boutons and Keelers. Mrs. Kiessling was Grace Saltonstall before marriage and is descended from Sir Richard Saltonstall who was the progenitor of the Sal- tonstall family in America. Their family has long been associated with such families as the Adams, Lodges and Cabots, who still breed leaders in the political and cultural fields.
So this, one of our very oldest houses, echoes the lives of colonial "adventurers," puritans, recluses and moderns. Thus the endless record for our evolution is marked here in New Ca- naan in this modest old house at the crest of East Avenue Hill.
THE PONUS RIDGE CHAPEL
EMMA THURTON, Author
LORENA NAYLOR, Artist
[May 24, 1951]
According to papers on file in the records of the Ponus Ridge Chapel and Community As- sociation, a group of people, namely James P. Davenport, Levi S. Weed, Fannie Heusted, Polly M. Weed, Katherine C. Comstock, Edith L. Weed and Hannah Anderson, "assembled on October 12, 1907 in the meeting rooms at Ponus Street and Davenport Ridge Road to form a Society to maintain the undenominational Christian worship of God, at or near Ponus Street, in the Town of New Canaan, State of Connecticut."
The record indicates that James L. Bouton of Springdale and a few loyal workers had first organized the movement around 1902. For a year the Rev. S. J. Evers came out after serv-
ices at the Glenbrook Church and preached at the "meeting room" here. Mr. Evers is pastor emeritus of the Glenbrook Union Memorial Church and still lives in that community.
Weekly prayer meetings and Sunday School classes were held over a long period of time in the "meeting room," which was in a butcher shop on Davenport Ridge Road owned by Levi S. Weed. The building referred to was moved years ago and is now a portion of the home of Mr. and Mrs. Christian Roehrle, which is just a short distance away from its original foundation.
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