Chapin and Rumrill Mansions

Around 1875, the Chapin and Rumrill families built two mansions at Goshen Point before the Harkness residence was established there. Railroad magnate Chester Chapin of Springfield, Massachusetts, had originally purchased Goshen Point and divided it into one hundred acre lots extending to the water, and the Chapin and Rumrill families, related by marriage, both established summer homes on the Point. Both houses were eventually destroyed by fire. The original Chapin House, thought to have been designed in the Queen Anne Victorian style, was destroyed in November 1894 after an oil lamp tipped over on its third floor. A second Chapin house was struck by lightning in 1903 and burned to the ground. Colonel James Rumrill also built a Queen Anne style mansion, designed by Eugene C. Gardner of Springfield, Massachusetts, west of the Chapin house on Goshen Cove; it burned to the ground along with some outbuildings in 1917, leaving only part of the redbrick carriage house north of the former mansion site. After rebuilding twice, the Chapin family chose not to rebuild again and sold their property, where the Eolia mansion now stands, to William Taylor, brother-in-law of Mary Stillman Harkness, who began construction of the existing mansion, Eolia, and later sold it to Edward and Mary Harkness. The Rumrill family also decided not to rebuild and sold their property to the Harknesses in 1934.

Waterford, Connecticut · United States