In 2004, the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation established the Historic Barns Project in response to the realization that our state was losing them at a disturbingly rapid rate and that “with each barn that is lost another piece of the state’s rich agricultural history disappears”. A grant from the Humanities Council was secured to hire an architectural historian to identify and document one hundred barns. In 2005, 350 barns were surveyed, from 2006 to 2008 grants were secured for conditions assessments, feasibility studies and structural stabilization, in 2009, the Commission on Culture and Tourism awarded a grant to document 2000 barns, and in 2011, to write a Register of Historic Places nomination for 200 of the most noteworthy. The barn at 20 Utley Road is one of these.
The criteria for inclusion in the Register, the official listing of the structures and sites that characterize our state’s history, stipulate that the barn must: be associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction. A Historic Resources Inventory Form is used to record relevant information on the property, the architecture, its history, ownership, and use.
The inventory starts with a description of the Interrelationship of the Building and Surroundings: “The property consists of 59 acres north of Utley Road and almost 48 acres to the south…A stream, Fuller Brook, runs from west to east across the property, to empty into the Little River in a valley to the east…A pond, a millpond in the 18th and 19th centuries…was formed by damming the brook. To the east and west of the pond are wooded areas. To the north is an open pasture …The farmhouse is located on a knoll above the road, the barn is to the west, a one story shed is to the north of the farmhouse, and open fields and orchard trees surround the buildings…The roadsides are lined with fieldstone walls, stonewalls run north to south between the barn and house and west of the barn.”
The property’s proximity to notable places is also recorded: the “historic village” of Hampton Hill, a National Register Historic District; the Airline Trail that “replaced the tracks of the Airline Railroad”; Station Road, “a reminder of the old railroad station”; the Edwin Way Teale Sanctuary at Trail Wood, the former home of a “prominent naturalist and writer”; and the James L. Goodwin and Natchaug State Forests.
A brief history of the town included the following facts. The first settler, David Canada, arrived from Salem in 1709 to what would become known as “Canada Parish” when the Ecclesiastical Society formed in 1717. The meeting house was constructed in 1723 and the town was incorporated in 1786. The chief occupation was agriculture with some mills evidenced in dam sites along the Little River, grist for the farmers’ grain, fulling for woolen cloth, and saw mills for felled lumber. The railroad came through in the 1800’s “at the urging of the town’s most prominent citizen, Governor Chauncey F. Cleveland”, and while it resulted in “minimal impact”, it contributed to the town becoming a destination for “summer people”.
The farmhouse is traced to two periods of construction, the first, circa 1719 and the second, 1740. The barn also dates back to the 1700’s, with an addition built in the 19th century. An extensive description details “a mix of horizontal clapboards and vertical siding painted red…a fieldstone foundation…gunstock posts…hewn and sawn chestnut timbers…stable windows…a hay track suspended below the ridge…stanchions for dairy cows…horse stalls…a room for carriages and wagons.”
The property’s 100 acres have remained intact since the time the first deed was recorded in 1719 when owner Paul Abbott built a saw mill on the pond. John Fuller acquired the property in 1743 and built the front part of the house. The house was enlarged with a second floor and the barn was built during the Fuller family’s ownership which lasted a century until Harvey Fuller sold the property in 1850 to William and Christiana Utley, for whom the road was named. The center chimney was removed and replaced with two chimneys and center stairs which are still there, though the next owner constructed a wrap-around porch which no longer remains. Photographs from this period also show another barn east of the house. From 1910 to 1930, the Colvins probably operated a dairy farm as evidenced by stanchions typical of early dairy operations. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the house was a vacation place for Ada C. Hickey of New London. During this period, Hampton was a popular summer destination, and she added a two story porch for guests. She also rented the farm acreage to Elmer Stone. Current owners Richard and Irene Brown purchased the property in 1972 and rebuilt the dam to restore the pond, which had drained in the 1920s.
Photographs contained in the report include location, aerial and parcel maps, current pictures of the house as well as those from 1884 and the 1920’s, the interior and exterior of the barn, the pond, the dam, and a postcard of the Utley Falls along Fuller Brook.
In the end, the report concluded that the “Barn and its associated Farmhouse are highly significant because of their early date, in the mid-18th century and the remarkably intact condition of the barn, house, and the surrounding rural landscape of 100 acres. The Barn is a rare surviving scribe rule frame with English tying joinery, and is particularly unique in being a five-bay structure which appears to be all of contemporaneous construction. The well-documented history of ownership by the Fuller and Utley families adds significance, as it extends the understanding of Hampton’s history beyond the area of the Historic District in the town center. The later incarnation of 20 Utley Road as a vacation home typifies the history of the area during the period of railroad and then automobile travel.”
Inclusion on the Register of Historic Places is an honor for Hampton; and if you’re ever far away and missing it, the study’s introduction — “…a stream, Fuller Brook, runs from west to east…to empty into the Little River…a millpond formed by damming the brook…to the east and west of the pond are wooded areas. To the north is an open pasture…the farmhouse is located on a knoll…the barn is to the west…and open fields and orchard trees…the roadsides are lined with fieldstone walls” – will instantly return you to our beloved little town.