Cherry Lane, west side

Facing east onto Cherry Lane, the John B. Clark House is located in a residential neighborhood dominated by open fields.

Notable Features

Displaying little in the way of decorative detail, the three-bay, side hall plan facade features a plain trimmed entrance way. A rounded arch window, usually found in the gable end of local, late-nineteenth century farmhouses, is exhibited on the second story of the north elevation. A large 2t story, ridge-to-street, gable-roofed ell projects from the north elevation. The south elevation displays a 2 story, 5-sided bay topped with a tin roof and a shed-roofed open porch. Two small additions have been added to the rear. Outbuildings include a shed, barn and two car garage.

 

Historical or Architectural Importance

This clapboarded 2t story, nineteenth-century domestic style house was built by John B. Clark about 1870. Supported by a brick foundation, the balloon frame is capped by a gable-to-street asphalt-shingled roof. John Buckley Clark (1842-1873) built this house about 1870 on the site of a house he purchased from John Hickox. Born in Haddam, Clark was orphaned at a young age and was placed out to neighbors and worked for room and board. With money he had saved as a child, Clark attended a “select school” in Poughkeepsie, New York. He returned to Connecticut after graduating and in 1862 enlisted as a private in Company A of the twenty-fourth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. On July 4, 1863, Clark was eating dinner after the Battle of Por.t Hudson when he was struck with a spent ball in the chest. He survived the accident and was discharged for disability the following September. In 1867 he married Samantha Nettleton (1841-1902) and took a job as a night watchman at the Crosby Manufacturing Company in Glastonbury. His health forced him to give the job up and he moved to Durham where he took up farming. “Attaining prominence as one of the most enterprising and promising young farmers in town of Durham” (p. 938). John B. Clark died in 1873 and the house was willed to his widow, Samantha who later married Edwin Atkins. In 1902, John B. Clark Jr. and his sister, Bertha Latham inheriteo the homestead. Clark Jr. continued to operate the farm. The house remained in the Clark family until 1954.