by Lila Parrish Lyman

The austerely beautiful stonemansion knwon as the Deshon-Allyn house, standing on the grounds of the Lyman Allyn Museum, at first sight gives no hint of the strange events which have centered in its locality.

Its opening as a public building takes us back nearly three hundred years. On or near the site of the stone house in 1664 stood a tavern run by Humphrey and Katharine Clay. Their tenancy came to an abrupt end when they were banished from the town for entertaining strangers and selling lead to the Indians.

The triangle of land on which the Deshon-Allyn house and the Lyman Allyn Museum stand was part of the outside commons of the town soon after the settlement of New London. Acreage in this area, known as Foxon's(sp?) Hill was granted to Sampson Haughton, John Lockwood, Charles Haynes and Thomas Roach among others. Haynes sold his to Thomas Robinson a mariner, who in turn sold it to Thomas Bolles, a shoemaker in 1671. In June of 1678 Mr. Bolles was away from home when a youth made his appearance and demanded shelter of Mrs. Bolles, who was alone with her three children. On her refusal, he attacked her with a hatchet from the woodpile, and after killing her, murdered the two older children. When Mr. Bolles returned he found only his infant son John alive. Mr. Bolles re-married (twice) but there appear to have been no other children. The family continued to occupy the farm, and in the course of time John gave "for the consideration of the love, good will and affection which I have" the southerly end of the farm, about eight and a quarter acres to his son Enoch. This continued to be referred to as the Enoch Bolles Farm, and it includes the land on which the stone house was erected.

The Bolles family enlarged its holdings on the hill, buying from the Reverend Gershom Bulkley the Haughton and Lockwood grants totalling thirty-six acres. The property was sold about within the family, and transferred from father to son, but was never out of their hands until it came to John, son of Enoch.

In March of 1802, John Bolles of Hartford sold to Daniel Deshon land with a house and barn, about eight acres, "which belonged to my father Enoch Bolles". His mother and sisters had quit-claimed their interests in the property to John and in their deed the bounds are contiguous with land already belonging to Deshon. Oddly enough, the property was no longer in New London, but in Waterford. This section was included when the town of Waterford was established by act of the Legislature in October, 1801, and it was to remain a part of that town for just under a century. Another act of the Legislature returned it to New London in January, 1899.

The Deshon family had been in New London for some time. The first of many Daniels was a goldsmith and came to New London from Norwich soon after 1715. The Deshon men married into the prominent merchant families of the town, the wife of this first Daniel being, Ruth, daughter of Christopher Christophers. The lather of Daniel of the stone house married three daughters of William Packwood, one after the other, and it was he who bought the Bolles farm for his home. He, too, added to his holdings, for after his death in 1826 his son Daniel and his son-in-law John Brandegee advertised for sale two farms adjoining belonging to his estate. One was two hundred acres, and the other about fifty, and there were two two-story dwelling houses thereon together with the usual barns and farm outbuildings.

In the meantime young Daniel had married in 1820 Augusta, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Coit, who died two years later. For his second wife he chose Fanny, the daughter of Senator George Thurston of Hopkinton, Rhode Island, and they were married in July, 1826. The old Bolles house very likely proved inadequate for the entertaining which the daughter of a Senator would do, and in 1829 the present stone mansion was built. It is regrettable that there is nothing to indicate the name of the architect responsible for the house, since it and its counterpart in wood, the Manwaring house at the top of Manwaring Hill, are very distinguished buildings, and are quite probably by the same hand. The plan has a central hall with rooms on each corner of the first two floors. Each has a fireplace in the outside wall. The woodwork is handsome and the proportion of the rooms most satisfying. The staircase in the Deshon house mounts to a landing which crosses the width of the hall beneath a window which afforded a glorious view of the city and harbor. The stone house is said to be a little north of the location of the Enoch Bolles farmhouse, but was on the original eight acre plot.

Mrs. Deshon did not live long to enjoy the new quarters, and in 1834, the year following her death, this advertisement appeared in the Gazette:

The Subscriber offers for sale that substantial, well built and finished stone house, erected in 1829, 43' square, cellar under the whole, 2 stories, each 10' in the clear: Barn, carriage ho__ large garden, young orchard of selected fruit, a choice well wa__ that has never failed, a good market at the door, and about 7 acres of land adjoining. Situated about 1 mile from the business part of New London, on the Turnpike road to Norwich; has a fine view of the city and Harbour, Long Island Sound, the neighboring islands and the river Thames, where steamboats and other vessel are constantly passing most part of the year; also about 40 to __ acres of superior quality of land adjoining bounded by the river Thames on the east (a clean shore for bathing, plenty of shell and other fish--as Bass, Black fish etc taken in their season) may be purchased if wanted, terms accomodating. Apply to Daniel Deshon on the premises. A light 4 wheel carriage on steel spring with harness, for one horse, nearly as good as new also a good family horse, 3 cows, one of them a first rate milk for sale. Apply as above.

Although the advertisement ran for months there were apparently takers, because when the house and land passed into the possession of Lyman Allyn it was bought from Daniel Deshon.

Lyman Allyn was born in Ledyard in 1797, and there are conflicting stories about his employment as a young man. One is that he was a merchant, another that he went to sea before the mast and rose to captain and then owner of whaling vessels. This latter makes the best story, for his first service as a mariner is supposed to have been under Captain Daniel Deshon. Certainly it is true that Lyman Allyn owned whaling vessels, which ran under his own house flag. On the other hand he might well have been a merchant and sent out his own ships without ever setting foot on the water.

In 1825 Lyman Allyn married Emma Turner, and they had five daughters and one son. The family lived on Main Stree, where the Learned Mission now stands. In April of 1851, Daniel Deshon finally found a customer for the stone house, and sold it to Lyman Allyn for $7150, with a mortgage of $6150, which Deshon held, and which was paid off in 1853. The land ran from the Thames River, with the exception of that part of it which Deshon had conveyed to the New London, Willimantic and Palmer Railroad for its tracks, to the Norwich turnpike and comprised about 50 acres. To the eye of a wealthy merchant in 1851 the house looked dreadfully bare, and so a wide varandah was built around it on three sides. There was also a frame addition on the northeast corner which housed the kitchen and servants' quarters. There is a lithograph of the house as it looked then, captioned the Residence of Lyman Allyn. One wonders if this was not made very soon after the purchase and alterations were made.

The children grew up and Mary married Harvey Seymour, while Harriet marred James Allyn of Mountville. The family in the big house could hardly have escaped notice in New London, which was still a small town, but the curious fact remains that when Lyman Allyn died, both the New York and New London papers reported that he was never married.

The Deshon-Allyn house was appraised at $12,000, and the life use of the property was given to Mrs. Allyn as her dower right. It was to revert to the children on her death. The family continued to occupy the house, eventually came to Harriet, the las surviving child, who, until her death in 1926 lived there with her sister-in-law, Mrs. John T. Allyn.

In her will, Harriet left the house, by now valued at $58,830, and its contents to Mrs. John Allyn, and provided that her land on the westside of the Norwich road be used for the Lyman Allyn Museum. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, she had already given this land to Connecticut college. By an agreement between Mrs. John Allyn, the exectutors of the estate and the Coast Guard, the present allotment of property was made. The Stone House was purchased from the Estate by the Trustee of the Museum to be used for its purposes. In 1932 when the Museum was opened, the house was restored by the removal of the verandah and the frame addition and was used as a home for the Director of the Museum until about 1950.

*********************
(written about 1975-1976)