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New Canaan Now & Then: Silliman’s

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The Silliman and Weed, a grocery store, was formed in 1867 by Joseph Fitch Silliman and Chauncey Weed. This business was located on the south corner of Main Street and East Avenue, most likely in 102 Main Street now occupied by Personal Touch and Dashi Custom Tailors. After a few years, Silliman bought out Weed and moved the store to what is now 114 Main Street. (At this point the brick Raymond building, which was covered in a previous article, had not been built.) Renamed Silliman & Co., the store occupied a two story wooden structure, and sold groceries along with hardware, furniture, and crockery. It also sold small farm equipment to the local farmers.

There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: Henry B. Rogers House

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Henry B. Rogers built 62 Park Street in the 1870s (photo above is ca. 1930s). It was one of the few mansions in the center of town and, like many, is now a parking lot. Rogers’ success came from the shirt manufacturing business he established with another New Canaan resident Albert B. Comstock. Originally called Comstock, Rogers & Co, the company name was changed in 1878 to Henry B. Rogers & Co. when Comstock sold his interest in the company to Rogers.

Around Town

New Canaan Now & Then: Center School

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Starting in 1795, classes for New Canaan’s School District No. 1 were held in a converted blacksmith’s shop on Park Street near where 63 Park Street now stands. Classes were then held in what is now 40 Seminary Street, but this building also proved to be inadequate. Eventually in 1853, a new school building was built on  the east side of Park Street somewhere between Cherry and Elm, but  before any classes could be held there, it burnt down. So for two years, classes were held in the Town House located at 13 Oenoke Ridge and is now the headquarters of the New Canaan Museum.

Around Town

New Canaan Now & Then: Vine Cottage

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According to Mary Louise King, 61 Main Street, or “Vine Cottage” was probably built in 1859 by the Sea Captain Sereno Ogden. 

Its history began with Edward Nash, a silversmith who came to New Canaan in 1809 and lived where Town Hall is today. Nash partnered with Stephen Hoyt, Jr. in Hoyt & Nash, the general store at the corner of Main Street and East Avenue. When Nash died in 1836, his homestead extended from Morse Court to the Red Cross building.  His daughter Hannah Nash inherited most of this property. When she died, she left the property to her young son Edward, but it was in the control of his guardian, her husband, Sereno Ogden.  

Mary Louise King speculates that Vine Cottage was built by Ogden for Albert Comstock, who ran a men’s clothing business, and his wife, Cornelia Carter.  Cornelia Carter Comstock was the founder of the Hannah Benedict Carter chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (it is named for her mother), and Albert Comstock was a founder of the Historical Society in 1889. The architectural changes, including Gothic additions and a front porch, were probably done in the 1860s by the Comstocks.  They sold the house with one acre to Stephen Pardee in 1871 for $4,500. “New Canaan Now & Then” is presented in partnership with the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.

There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: Cody Pharmacy

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Samuel Silliman opened the first drug store in New Canaan on Main Street in 1845. Nine years later, Lucius Monroe purchased it and renamed it the New Canaan Drug store. Doctors came to dispense medicines and Monroe did, too. By the later part of the 19th century, the drug store had become something of a social center of the town. It had a soda fountain with a marble counter, home-made ice cream, round ice cream parlor tables and chairs, hair oil for men, women’s cosmetics, mortars and pestles, Magic Hoodoo Ant Paper, various powders and fragrances, bottles, stuffed birds, jars of rock candy and licorice, cigarettes, cigars, snuff, school supplies, and toilet paper.