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The Thomas Lyon House built around 1690-95 is regarded as Greenwich, Connecticut’s oldest unaltered structure and is on the National Register of Historic Places. A colonial saltbox at 1 Bram Road, it was built by the family and decedents of Thomas Lyon, who was one of the earliest settlers in Fairfield County. The Thomas Lyon House is considered a rare example of colonial-style architecture that hasn’t had the additions and alterations to the core structure that usually occurs over time.
The original Thomas Lyon was born in England in 1621, and first arrived in the new world at the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He then went to seek his fortune in the “Far West” of Connecticut in Fairfield County where at 26, he married his first wife, Martha Winthrop in 1647. Martha was the granddaughter of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony whose family had received the land that today is Old Greenwich.
Martha and Thomas Lyon had one child before she died in her twenties. Thomas Lyon remarried having a son also named Thomas Lyon, who “built the house near Byram Bridge, which is still standing, having been occupied until the present time by his descendants.” This Thomas Lyon (1673-1739) with his wife Abigail and their children, were the original occupants of the house and it remained in the Lyon family into the 20th Century.
It also may have been the home of Peter Henry Lee who was an escaped slave from Virginia who had found freedom in Connecticut and worked at the Thomas Lyon house for Seth Lyon. On a Sunday in late November 1836, a trap was set to get Lee to come over Byram Bridge from Connecticut by two slave catchers from New York and the Sheriff from the county in Virginia where he had escaped slavery.
An unidentified man who knew Lee was paid $1.50 dollars to lure him across the bridge, and as soon as he reached the New York side he was jumped by four men and hauled off to Virginia, never to see freedom again.
Originally, the Thomas Lyon House was located on the north side of the Post Road, but had to be moved in 1927 to its current location when the road was widened.
The last member of seven generations of the Lyon family to occupy the house, Julia Lyon Saunders, gave it to the Lions Club and Rotary Club with the intention of using it as a welcome and information center for the Town of Greenwich – “The Gateway to New England.”
The Thomas Lyon House is presently undergoing restoration under the auspices of Greenwich Preservation Trust whose website contains more information about the home and its occupants: http://www.greenwichpreservationtrust.org
Steve Penny author of Hiring The Best People writes on the best places for you to live in Connecticut. If you are looking for Greenwich CT Realtors please visit http://www.Prudentialct.com
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