Joshua Stow's Middletown Home

Story Information From Historic Buildings of Connecticut:
The present style of the front facade of the building at 191 to 195 Main Street in Middletown dates to c. 1891, when the original two-and-one-half story structure with a gable roof was raised to a full three stories. The north section of this commercial building was built in 1835 by:

Joshua Stow who operated a store there!

“Stow journey to Ohio in 1796-97 as part of Moses Cleaveland’s team, helping to survey the Western Reserve around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River at Lake Erie. He was the company’s commissary manager (in charge of distributing food and drink). When he saw the forested future township, he said it was “one of the prettiest and most romantic spots in the Western Reserve.” He purchased the whole five-mile square of Stow Township as an investment, for $14,154. Although the township is named for him, Joshua Stow never lived there. Some of Stow’s relatives did settle there, and a few of their descendants still live in Stow.

Back in Middletown Joshua was appointed postmaster and tax collector. He was also an associate judge of the court. He was “at the center of the political troubles” there, according to A Pictorial History of Middletown. He favored Thomas Jefferson in the presidential race of 1800, and thus became an enemy of the local Federalists, who wanted the social order to remain as it was: dominated by the Congregational Church. For over a century, one had to be a member of that church in order to hold public office in Connecticut. Stow’s convictions that the church should not be the center of the government led him to take an active role in Connecticut’s Constitutional Convention in 1818. He wrote Article Seven of the state constitution, making it a matter of personal choice as to which church a person could join.
Joshua died Oct. 10, 1842, and was buried in the “Old Cemetery” in Middlefield.” Above From Munroe Falls Public Library.

In 1845 the building passed to William Trench, who rented it out to various commercial tenants. From 1882 to 1887 it was rented by the Middletown Police, who used it as the town’s first police station. The matching south section of the building was in place by 1856 (and may have been built at the same time as the north half (1835), with the brick fire wall down the center of the building being shared by the owners of the two separate halves).

Information From Historic Properties List: From Middletown’s Planning and Zoning

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