Boardman Store

Elijah Boardman, born in 1760 as the third son of Sherman and Sarah Boardman, served briefly in the Continental Army before illness ended his service, then clerked in New Haven for merchants Elijah and Archibald Austin before returning to New Milford to open a dry goods store in the southern half of the Daniel Bostwick longhouse, one of five shops in town. In 1782, he and his brother Daniel bought the Bostwick longhouse, and in 1792, after marrying Mary Anna Whiting, Elijah began building a new house, barns, and a shop on four acres west of the current Green; Daniel then left the business, and in 1796 Elijah moved his second dry goods store into the gambrel-roofed shop beside his house. Elijah was later elected to the U.S. Senate in 1821. His original house still stands, and a 1796 painting of his property by the itinerant artist Ralph Earl later guided architect McKee Peterson of Austin Patterson Architects in reconstructing the store two hundred years later. The store was moved twice in the 19th century, first in 1861 by Cornelia Boardman to the west side of the railroad tracks and again in 1914 to the northeast corner of Railroad Street and Boardman Terrace, where it served as the Travaglini home. By 1974, when businessman Harry H. Taylor bought it, the building had become a two-family house, and after he offered to donate it rather than have it demolished for new construction, a campaign began to move it again and restore its original appearance. Although little of the store seemed to remain, its original post-and-beam framework and sheathing survived beneath many later additions. In the fall of 1994, a crew dismantled the building piece by piece, numbering and labeling the wood for storage until reconstruction. Some saved original timbers, signed by the original workman, can still be seen. Fundraising began with a donation from Richard Morehouse Booth, a longtime board member and president from 1973 to 1978, who was also a local church organist, a music teacher at the Kent School, and an amateur photographer. The new store's cornerstone, made of New Milford marble and donated by the Valley Marble and Slate Corporation, was engraved 1796-1996 A.D. and contained coins from those years to mark Elijah Boardman's first store and the year his last store was reconstructed. After its final move, the rebuilt store was dedicated on October 27, 1996, and it continues to serve as exhibition and meeting space for the museum.

New Milford, Connecticut · United States