Museums

Several local museums offer glimpses into Guilford’s past.

Henry Whitfield State Museum

Construction of the Henry Whitfield House began in 1639 when a group of English Puritans, including Reverend Henry Whitfield and his family, entered into an agreement with the Menunkatuck band of the Quinnipiac tribe and renamed the area Guilford. Built of local granite, the house was one of the colonial settlement’s four stones houses that functioned as defensive buildings and private homes. It is now considered to be Connecticut’s oldest house and New England’s oldest stone house. Since 1900, it has been own and operated by the State of Connecticut as a public museum, and the site is a State Archaeological Preserve.


The Hyland House Museum

The Hyland House Museum, in Guilford, Connecticut, is one of New England’s oldest house museums whose mission is to share the community’s rich colonial history and to inspire ongoing stewardship of that legacy. The Dorothy Whitfield Historic Society  purchased the House in 1916 and opened it to the public as a museum in 1918.


The Dudley Farm Museum

The Dudley Farm was built in 1845 by Erastus Dudley, a prosperous North Guilford farmer, gristmill and tannery owner. Today, the house, barns and surrounding ten picturesque acres occupy a portion of the land farmed by the Dudley Family for almost 300 years.


The Thomas Griswold House Museum

The Thomas Griswold House is a classic New England saltbox dwelling standing on a commanding knoll along a picturesque stretch of the old Post Road in Guilford. Purchased by the Guilford Keeping Society in 1958, the house is now furnished in the style of the early nineteenth century. One upstairs room is dedicated to temporary exhibits of times from the Society’s collection, primarily nineteenth century clothing and Guilford photographs.


Medad Stone Tavern Museum

The Medad Stone Tavern Museum was built in 1803 by Medad Stone to serve as a Tavern. He had built it away from the town green because he thought the Boston Post Road would be rerouted. As it was not rerouted that way, it never opened. In 2001, Leonard Davis Hubbard bequeathed the Tavern to the Guilford Keeping Society. The GKS restored the Tavern to what it was in 1803 and opened it as “the Tavern that opened 200 years late.” The building has 14 rooms and 10 fireplaces. The property also holds a barn, corn crib and extensive fields. It is located at 171 Three Mile Course.

Visit

Guilford Free Library
67 Park Street, Guilford CT 06437
Phone: 203-453-8282 Fax: 203-453-8288


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