Henry Whitfield House records

The Henry Whitfield House, also known as the "Old Stone" house, was constructed in late 1639 and throughout 1640 in Guilford, Connecticut. The house was built by Henry Whitfield a Puritan minister from Ockley, Surrey, England. Whitfield arrived in 1639 with his wife Dorothy Sheaffe, nine children, twenty five men, and an unknown number of women and children. He would remain in the new settlement of Guilford until about 1650-1651 when he returned to England leaving his wife Dorothy and some children behind. Henry Whitfield died in Winchester, England in 1657 where he served as minister of the Diocese of Winchester and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

The Henry Whitfield House is a two story home that has a great hall, hall chamber, and three chambers on the second floor. The roof sits at a sixty degree angle easily allowing for thatch or thin stone roofing. The house according to the records was designed to serve not only as living quarters for the Whitfield's but also as a fortress and a temporary meeting house while the rest of the settlement was being constructed.

The house was occupied by numerous owners from 1640 until 1865 when the last person to occupy the home died. The house slowly deteriorated from 1865 until 1897 when the Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames led a campaign to transfer the home from private to public ownership. The Connecticut Legislature on June 22, 1899 passed an appropriations bill approving the purchase of the house and necessary land to turn it into a state historical museum. The town of Guilford was also required by the appropriations bill to appropriate money in exchange for a voting trustee member. The remaining money was raised by the Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames in order to purchase the house and eight acres in 1900. The appropriations act also authorized the Governor of Connecticut to appoint eight trustees to oversee the Henry Whitfield House Historical Museum.

The first restoration to the Henry Whitfield House occurred in 1901 under the direction of architect Norman Isham. Under the guidance of Isham the second floor over the great hall was removed to create a larger exhibit hall for the museum and the partition on the first floor was removed creating one large hall. The board of trustees in 1930-1931 and 1935-1937 contracted J. Frederick Kelly, an architect specializing in old New England houses, to restore the house to near original condition. The Henry Whitfield House restoration project also received federal Work Progress Administration funding in 1935 which assisted in completing the change back to the original house structure of 1639-1640.