I’m staying at the Simsbury 1820 House, which, coincidentally, was built in 1820. As you can clearly see from the photo, it reflects Georgian and Adamesque influences with its Palladian windows and Doric columned porch. It’s also the birthplace of Gifford Pinchot, and yes, that is the very same Gifford Pinchot who founded the US Forest Service in 1905.

A place as ritzy as this really requires its own custom toilet paper label, and indeed it has one.

Simsbury is where my 4G-grandfather Israel Wells lived prior to the Ohio migration of 1804-1805, when he was in his mid-40s. His parents also lived here until their untimely deaths around age 30, in 1762. Israel and his sister were then raised by their maternal grandparents.

There isn’t much to Simsbury. I expected more of a town, with a town square and streets laid out in a grid around it, but there’s none of that. It’s just a collection of buildings along one side of the Farmington River, built at various times over the last 350 years.

The Starbucks was built in 1762. As you may have guessed, it was not a Starbucks at the time.

It was originally built as a house and used as a tavern during the Revolution. Given the central nature of taverns during that period, I like to think that Israel was in there at least once, when he wasn’t out shooting redcoats.