Asa Seymour Curtis House
2016 Elm Street, Stratford, CT 06615Benjamin Douglas House
11 South Main Street, Middletown, CT 06457Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church
160 Cross Street, Middletown, CT 06457David Ruggles Gravesite
Yantic Cemetery, Lafayette and Williams Streets, Norwich, CT 06360Elijah Lewis House
1 Mountain Spring Road, Farmington, CT 06032Francis Gillette House
545 Bloomfield Avenue, Bloomfield, CT 06002Friendship Valley
60 Pomfret Road, Brooklyn, CT 06234
In 1825, George Benson (1752-1836), a wealthy Quaker merchant from Providence, Rhode Island moved to this 1795 home to live in retirement. A friend and supporter of Reverend Samuel May and his reform activities, Benson and his family were strongly opposed to slavery from their days in Providence. The family had a wide acquaintance with many prominent abolitionists including Arthur Tappan, the philanthropic New York merchant, and William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of The Liberator of Boston. Garrison was married in the parlor of this home in 1834 to George Benson’s daughter, Helen Eliza Benson. Reverend Samuel May officiated at the wedding ceremony. Another daughter, Mary, voluntarily shared Prudence Crandall’s jail cell in Brooklyn on the night of her arrest. George Benson posted bond the following day. During Prudence Crandall’s two day trial in August 1833, she and some of her students stayed in Benson’s home, Friendship Valley. This home is privately owned and not open to the public.
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