Another family's trove of photos reveals more Elmcroft history

Last week we discovered the location of Frank and Martha Fowler's home on Amity Road in Woodbridge when John Rumbold, a member of a family that subsequently resided there, shared his family memories of the home he knew as Elmcroft. This week, we'll present a little collection of photographs as we continue to piece together the history of Elmcroft through the years.

First, let's consult the history of the house as published in Historic Woodbridge — Second Edition to learn more about the home's early inhabitants:

Dr. Thomas & Isaac Goodsell House
Owned by the estate of Adelaide Hummer; John Rumbold, executor.
471 Amity Road is a five-bay, ridge-to-street colonial house with a slightly off-center chimney. ... Historically important as the home of the two earliest physicians in Woodbridge and its later association with the Perkins-Walker family, this house was built about 1760 for Dr. Thomas Goodsell, a descendant of a noted Branford family. In addition to his medical practice, Goodsell was licensed to run a tavern in town in 1796 and served as the town clerk that year. In the early nineteenth century, it became the home of his son, Dr. Isaac Goodsell (1778-1864), who apparently took over his father’s practice. After serving as a surgeon during the War of 1812, Isaac was one of the founders of Apothecaries Hall in New Haven in 1821, possibly the earliest drugstore in the state. Isaac received an honorary M.D. from Yale in 1826. In 1807, he married Huldah Smith (1781-1859), a daughter of David & Huldah (Beecher) Smith. Later in the century this was the home of John Jay Perkins (b. 1809), who built the Congregational Church in 1832 (see #106). By 1870 he was farming here with his wife, Betsey, and the household also included his daughter, Katherine M. (1836-1911), her husband Charles T. Walker (1839-1911), and his mother-in-law Betsey Peck, then an 83-year-old widow. Walker, who came here from Oxford in 1865, married Katherine (aka Katie) in 1868. He was the organist and choirmaster at the Congregational Church for 43 years and served on the committee to renew the church frescoes in 1892. Later owners included a Mr. Fowler, who bred race horses and built the large stable here in the late nineteenth century. The family of the present owner acquired the property in 1947.

Now let's jump into to another wonderful source of information, Jane Filer Haritos (a distant cousin of mine) who saw our post on social media last week and was delighted to discover the location of this house where her great-grandparents, Frank and Martha Fowler, raised their daughters Jessie, Ruth, and Esther (Jane's maternal grandmother). She shared her own collection of photos:

Here are two more images of the house when the Fowler family lived there:

And finally, a faded news clipping shared by Jane that describes the wedding of Esther Fowler to Raymond Winthrop Smith on the lawn of Elmcroft in 1920:

P.S. — A message to readers

Alongside sharing stories from the past here on TownHistory.org, I’ve also launched a new companion project on Substack: the Woodbridge Town Chronicle. It’s an independent civic-news publication dedicated to hyper-local coverage of town government, elections, and community life in Woodbridge, Connecticut.

Some of you have already signed up to receive the Chronicle's newsletter delivered to your inbox every Monday — thank you! If you haven’t yet, and would prefer not to fuss with another sign-up, just reply to this message and I’ll gladly add you to the Chronicle's distribution list. Or you can visit the Chronicle's website to sign up directly (at woodbridge.town).

My hope is that these two projects — history and news — will complement each other, and I may occasionally cross-post stories that connect past and present. (Well... don't they all?) More soon...