The Samuel Smith Farmstead, located in East Lyme, CT, is a colonial-era homestead featuring a unique and remarkably intact colonial house and barn on 17 acres of rural land that was part of the original homestead. The house is being restored and maintained with accuracy to its beginning in c1685, with additional construction and additions added in c1735 and c1812. Originally known as the Hurlbut House, the structure is a simple 1-and-a-1/2 story gambrel-roofed cottage dating from the late 17th or early 18th century. The house was enlarged along the west wall around 1730 when a nearby house was moved to the site. The roofline was re-framed to a gambrel at the same time, making the facade asymmetrical with two pairs of windows spaced unevenly across it. The front door is a simple batten type reproduction.
The main room of the original house is the hall with its rough fieldstone chimney and low beamed ceiling. The joists are beaded to indicate they were finished to be exposed. Featheredge paneling on all four walls survives. Originally, the entry to the house was directly into the hall. The porch was once a second, small bedroom off the hall, and a small square fireplace indicates that the area was heated. A cellar fireplace exists in the chimney, indicating that the cellar once served as a summer kitchen for the house. The area across the rear of the house was unheated and used for storage, with a buttery partitioned off. Above the hall, the attic was open sleeping space, reached at first by a ladder, and later a staircase was added.
When the house was enlarged, the floor plan became that of a central chimney structure, with a porch, flanking parlor and hall, and a long kitchen. The north wall of the parlor is featheredge paneled, while the small borning room behind the parlor is paneled all around. In the kitchen, a casement window is clearly outlined. The roof was re-framed during the enlargement though beams sandwiched between the rafters and the roof indicate that the pitch of the gambrel was insufficient and was later inclined more steeply. More alterations took place in c.1810 as part of a major modernization effort. Three dormers were set in the gambrel across the front and a fourth added at the northwest rear corner, making possible the enclosure of the attic into 4 small rooms. The present owners are restoring the house and have uncovered and re-installed much of the panelling and woodwork.
In addition to the pine outhouse mentioned previously, there is a small 18th-century shed on the property. The beams are carefully chamfered with lamb’s-tongue stops, and the original wide door is gone. Etchings of several sailing ships exist on the walls in the house, presumably drawn by the children of Captain John Johnson, a sea-captain who owned the house late in the 18th century. An Indian gravesite is said to be located on the property, and several Indian grinding stones have been found near Bride Brook, where it flows through the property. The Hurlbut House is significant primarily for its great age and excellent state of preservation. It is also significant as an illustration of the evolution of the floor plan from end-to-center chimney, and as a rare surviving example of the type of simple, primitive structure which would have been common for the average early 18th-century family.
Posted by keith.sariol on 2023-01-08 13:40:16