Henry Whitfield House
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Henry Whitfield House
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Henry Whitfield House, the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England
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| Location | Guilford, Connecticut |
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| Coordinates | 41°16′39.89″N 72°40′35.04″W / 41.2777472°N 72.6764000°WCoordinates: 41°16′39.89″N 72°40′35.04″W / 41.2777472°N 72.6764000°W |
| Built | 1639 |
| Architect | Unknown |
| Architectural style | American Colonial |
| NRHP Reference # | 72001327 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 27, 1972 |
| Designated NHL | September 25, 1997 |
The Henry Whitfield House is a historic house located at 248 Old Whitfield Street in Guilford, Connecticut, down the street from the town green. This house dates from 1639, having been built just before the town of Guilford was settled. It is the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England. The house, with its massive stone walls, also served as a fort to protect the community. Henry Whitfield, for whom the house was built, was a Puritan minister who had come from England to flee religious persecution. The house was remodeled in 1868 and opened to the public in 1899 as the first museum of the State of Connecticut, the Henry Whitfield State Museum. The house was restored in 1902–04 and in the 1930s and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. It was named a State Archeological Preserve in 2006.
The first settlers of the Guilford colony began construction of their minister's home in September 1639, shortly after their arrival in the area of the future Guilford colony. However, they had begun construction of the house too late in the year, winter weather preventing them from finishing anything more than half of the great hall and north fireplace until the following spring. By the summer of 1640 the rest of the hall, the second floor, and the attic were completed and the house was inhabited by Whitfield and his family. Accounts of the construction state that the local Menunkatuck Indians aided the settlers in the construction of the house by transporting stone from nearby quarries to the building site on hand barrows. The walls of the house were made nearly two feet thick because there was so much stone available for construction. The original mortar used to cement the stones was composed of yellow clay and crushed oyster shell, a technique developed by the lack of more conventional building materials. Inside the great hall, the "joists and rafters were hand-hewn oaken timbers; the inside partitions were formed by wide planks of pine or white wood joined with feathered edges."
First and foremost, the Whitfield House served as the home for Henry Whitfield, Dorothy Shaeffe Whitfield, and their nine children. The house also served as a place of worship before the first church was built in Guilford, a meetinghouse for colonial town meetings, a protective fort for the settlers in case of attack, and a shelter for travelers between the New Haven and Saybrook colonies. In addition, the Whitfield House was used by the Roman Catholic community as a chapel in the 1860s before St. George Church was constructed on the Guilford Green. Even after the church was completed many parish meetings were still held in the house. Today, it is a museum, a State Archeological Preserve, a National Historic Landmark, and a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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