JOSEPH CARPENTER STORE

NORWICHTOWN CONNECTICUT

 

Norwichtown is the oldest section of Norwich, Connecticut. Located on a high hill on the west side of town, it’s a living neighborhood with Colonial homes so authentic that you’d expect Myles Standish to come out one of the front doors. Indeed, the huge rectangular town  square, often referred to as a ‘parade ground’ in Connecticut towns, is surrounded by beautifully restored homes, many of which were taverns back in the goodle days.

One of my favorites is the Joseph Carpenter store, built around 1772. This gambrel-roofed beauty has the clapboard siding and vertical plank doors common to homes of that era, but the windows and their treatments are what caught my eye.

 

The side windows are quite typical of this type of house, with nine-over-nine lite double-hung sashes, but in front, the fifteen-lite single sashes are not double hung. Rather, they appear to be of the casement type, with sashes that swing inward on side hinges. It’s possible that they are fixed, but Yankees are a pretty practical lot, and ventilation would seem necessary. Just why one of the sashes is made as a twenty-lite, I have no idea.

This being a store, I imagine (correct me if I’m wrong, Norwichians) that the double entry gave ingress to a residence on one side and a commercial space on the other.

But it is the shutter treatments I like best.

 

Hinged horizontally, they appear to be original, or at least close to the age of the home. Built from nailed planks, the shutters seem sturdy enough to repel an Indian attack, though in 1772, there were few threats from Native Americans in this area. Perhaps because it was a store that the shutters were needed. There was a local war that erupted in Massachusetts in the latter half of the decade, and though I have no knowledge of the British invading Norwich, it was undoubtedly on the minds of the locals at the time.

The hardware that keeps the upper shutter open is definitely hand-forged. Likely right there in the neighborhood.

 

I’ve not seen anything like these shutters or the hardware anywhere else in New England, but I’ll wager they aren’t singular.