But a short distance East [based on the Road Church] of this Stanton ground, stands the house built about 1710 by Edward Denison and his son John, whose first wife, Anna, was drowned in the well, which can now be seen by the roadside, southeast of the house as you are driving along the highway [now inside our stone wall]. This house is still in good order and bids fair to stand a hundred years longer [which it has], although now nearly two hundred years old.  It is a large double house, facing the south, the east side being broader than the west, which has only one window at the south, while on the right of the front door, the room is large and square with two windows at the south.  In this room, is the old fashioned corner cupboard [which is still there], which was enclosed by a circular bar, one half of which was movable and allowed the bar tender to pass back and forth as he served his customers [the bar is gone].  The entire upper story on the west side was once a dancing hall, with a swinging partition in the middle which could be fastened up at will, and the hooks are still in the ceiling, although the partition has been made stationary.

Mr. Denison sold this house and a small lot of land in 1760, to Col. Giles Russell of Wethersfield.  He was a graduate of Yale College and a lawyer, being admitted to the bar in Hartford, CT.  Soon after he came to Stonington, he was appointed Captain of a company of 55 Conn. and R.I. men in the expedition against Havana under Admiral Pococke and Lord Albermarle, of whom only sixteen men reached home alive.  He was married soon after his return, to Prudence Stanton, and when his law business increased, he built a lean-to on the East Side of this house for an office, and afterwards increased it to its present size [since reduced by 50% -- one of our projects is to re-enlarge it].  In 1763 he was appointed Tavern Keeper there, and continued so till he entered the Army of the American Revolution as Lieut. Col. in the 3rd Battalion, Wadsworth Brigade, which was raised in 1776 to reinforce Washington at New York.
He was also in the French and Indian War, and died from effects of service in 1779, and is burried in Road Cemetery [so named because when the church was built, it was the only road in the town], where the Society of the Children of the Revolution have placed a bronze marker at his grave.

Col. Russell's house was afterwards bought by Mr. James Noyes, whose son, Uncle John, used it as the Town and Probate Office, of which he was the Clerk, for 42 years.  At his death, the office was removed to the village of Stonington.  Later, this place became the property of Mr. Edmund S. Noyes, and is now occupied by his widow and son, Joseph Noyes.

Excerpted from:
The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn.
by Grace Denison Wheeler
Salem, Mass.
Newcome and Gauss, Printers
1903

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