Elmore Houses

The historic homes on Long Hill Road are tied to the Elmore family, who owned farming land in modern-day South Windsor, Connecticut, from the early seventeenth century until 1973. In fact, the first Elmore, Edward, co-founded Hartford. The two historic houses on 78 and 87 Long Hill Road survive from nearly a dozen homes and various structures that sat on the historic property. The remaining residences survive as exemplary early-nineteenth-century Greek Revival farmhouse homes. 

Edward Elmore (d. 1676) co-founded Hartford with Thomas Hooker in 1636. He afterward moved to Northampton, Massachusetts for a time before returning in 1660 to today's Windsor, Connecticut. Upon his return, he purchased a three-mile-lot, which he passed down to his descendants. Over the centuries that followed, the Elmore family built several homes and operated increasingly prosperous farms, notably when the family turned to tobacco farming during the nineteenth century. 

The family's early crops consisted of corn, wheat, barley, oats, and flax, but the family also maintained animals that they slaughtered and sold as meat. Though the family enjoyed success, evidence suggests that for decades, if not centuries, the family demonstrated traits associated with subsistence farmers; they worked long hours in the fields, husked bees, cooked, churned butter, processed cheese, made clothes and furniture, and more. As the 19th century progressed, the family turned to broadleaf tobacco, mainly used in cigar production, as a cash crop. The introduction of broadleaf tobacco appeared around 1833, although widespread cultivation of broadleaf tobacco gained popularity during the 1850s. By the start of the Civil War, Hartford County stood as one of the nation's top cigar-tobacco producers, with the Elmore family contributing to that dominance. 

The oldest house sits at 78 Long Hill Road, obtained by Sally Elmore Burnham in 1816 (the family constructed the home before she took ownership of it). That first home underwent a substantial redesign during the 1840s. Timothy Burnham, Sally's son, restyled the first house in the Greek Revival style. 

Harvey Elmore (1799 - 1873), the sixth-generation Connecticut Elmore, married Clarissa Burnham in 1830, and the couple had two children. Harvey served as the captain of an independent rifle company attached to the Twenty-Fifth Connecticut Militia from 1836 to 1838. From 1842 to 1846, he served as a member of the Connecticut General Assembly where, in 1845, he petitioned to create the town of South Windsor, separating it from Hartford (the city his family co-founded). In 1843, he built the Greek Revival house at 87 Long Hill Road in South Windsor after first demolishing the house already on the lot; he successfully farmed the land. 

Harvey's son, Samuel Edward Elmore, became president of the Connecticut River Banking Company. Their daughter, Mary Janette Elmore (1831-1922), never married and lived in the house until her death at the age of ninety-one. The discovery of her memoirs in the home's attic after her death (written when she was eighty and dedicated to her brother, Samuel) provided extensive details about the Elmore family's day-to-day life. From the time Mary Elmore died in 1922 until 1973, the family sold the homes and land (though the tobacco crop still grew at the time of the sale in the nine acres of the farm at 87 Long Hill Road). The final sale closed the book on three centuries of Elmore ownership and a significant part of Hartford-area history.

Anderson, P.J. "Growing Tobacco in Connecticut." The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 564. ct.gov. January, 1953. https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/pesticides/Certification/Applicator/PATobaccoManualpdf.pdf.

Historic Buildings of Connecticut. "Elmore-Burnham House (1816)." historicbuildingsct.com. Accessed December 18, 2020. http://historicbuildingsct.com/elmore-burnham-house-1816/. 

Historic Buildings of Connecticut. "Harvey Elmore House (1843)." historicbuildingsct.com. Accessed December 18, 2020. http://historicbuildingsct.com/harvey-elmore-house-1843/. 

Kremidas, Lori Jean. "The History of South Windsor Connecticut: Settlement to Incorporation, 1634 - 1845." southwindsor-ct.gov. March 25, 1981. https://www.southwindsor ct.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif3831/f/uploads/swhistory.pdf.

Percy W. Bidwell. "The Agricultural Revolution in New England." The American Historical Review 26, no. 4 (1921): 683-702. 

Ransom, David F. "Nomination Form: Elmore Houses." National Register of Historic Places. nps.gov. August 23, 1985. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/03d40f02-4e13-441c-8c56-5a16c2369ae5.