Wethersfield Historic Homes: Buttolph-Williams House

With its dark weathered clapboard siding and diamond-paneled casement windows, the Buttolph-Williams House built in 1711 in the traditional style of New England's Puritan era is the oldest surviving home in Wethersfield, Connecticut. The House is probably the finest restoration in the Connecticut Valley of what in its day was a common style of New England house in the early colonial period.

Wethersfield is located at the northern most navigable point of the Connecticut River. It was the state's first European settlement established by a group who called themselves "The Adventurers" from Boston in 1634. The excellent farmland in the river valley and its strategic location on New England's largest navigable river caused the settlement to thrive. The Wethersfield Cove which is an arm of the Connecticut River became an early shipbuilding community supplying the Caribbean trade with vessels.

Although the house was originally thought to have been built by David Buttolph, today it is widely accepted the house was built by Benjamin Belder in 1711 who was licensed to be a tavern-keeper. The house was probably finished when he married his wife, Anne Churchill in 1714. In its early days it would have served both as their residence and as an inn that welcomed travelers to eat and sleep here.

The house is two stories of darkly weathered riven oak clapboard siding that is split, not cut that was a common construction method at the time, with a steep overhanging roof supported by massive hewn oak post and girt construction framing. The small casement windows are leaded and divided into diamond shaped panes which in its day was expensive and had to be imported from England.

The interior ground floor is a two-room parlor and kitchen plan, with a massive central fireplace that harkens back to the Puritan era of New England during the 1600s and its essentially medieval building methods. Each room has fine examples of Pilgrim-style furniture.

The kitchen has a massive open hearth and an extensive assortment of early colonial-era cooking utensils, pewter, wooden plates and animal horn spoons. There's a spinning wheel, cards to spin flax, a butter churner and dinner table.

A winding staircase from the front porch leads to the second floor that's also two rooms. One of the 20th Century's most renowned antique collectors, Katherine Prentiss Murphy decorated the bed chamber with exquisite examples of 18th century furniture.

The house was acquired by Connecticut Landmarks in 1941 and was beautifully restored and opened to the public in 1951. Many of the original materials - including the stone foundation, the fireplaces and original hewn-timber framing and interior woodwork - are all original.

The Buttolph-Willaims House with its medieval aura was the source of inspiration for an award winning book for young adults - The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. The book was about the fictional account of a young orphaned girl from Barbados and her experience of the religious prejudices in 17th Century Connecticut. Winner of the John Newbery Medal for distinguished contribution to American literature for children in 1959, the book to this day is required reading for many elementary school students in the United States.

The Buttolph-Williams House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1968 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. Located at 249 Broad Street, Wethersfield, Connecticut and open to the public, it is operated by the Webb Deane Stevens Museum at 860 529-0460 through which tours need to be booked.

The oldest standing house in Connecticut's oldest settlement makes the Buttolph-Williams House one of Wethersfield, Connecticut's most important historic homes.

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