Historic homes open doors to past for holidays
Avery-Copp, Leffingwell houses in Groton and Norwich welcome guests
Between a Christmas tree with Lincoln Logs and other wooden toys underneath, instructions on how to make George Washington’s Christmas eggnog, and holly garlands strung up from the fireplace mantel to the stairs, there’s no place like a historic home for the holidays.
Both Norwich’s Leffingwell House Museum, a 1675 home that counts George Washington and Benedict Arnold among its visitors, and Groton’s Avery-Copp House, built in 1800, held their annual holiday open houses Sunday.
Avery-Copp House Museum Director Leslie Evans said staff started hosting the open house seven or eight years ago, to introduce the museum to the community and to collect food for Groton Social Services.
“I think people are very curious about how Christmas was celebrated in the past,” Evans said.
She added that life is so hectic and people are so connected to technology that sometimes they want to a step back into a simpler time.
The Avery-Copp House aims to have a “social history theme” of how life was lived in Groton in the past, and its school programs focus on themes still relevant today.
For example, the live-in servants — two at a given time, a housekeeper/ cook and a “maid of all work” — were Irish immigrants.
Museum board member George Gauthier explained that the only other option for the Irish women was factory work, and while a factory salary was higher, working in a home was preferable because it included boarding. The servants lived on the third floor of the Avery-Copp House and had their own bathtub, which Gauthi
er said was progressive for the time.
Groton resident Melissa Eichelberg said she saw the event on Facebook and decided to come with her 5-year-old son, Shawn, because he likes looking at people's houses. It was their first time at the Avery-Copp House.
Robyn Hoffman has been there many times, which may have something to do with the fact that she has lived next door since 2005. Through a window in her home, she said she saw a ghost in the Avery-Copp House, though she “perceived it as a friendly presence.”
One of the things that's very touching to her about the historic house is the way people held onto their treasures, whether a vase or a portrait.
“It's a warm feeling,” Hoffman said. “It's not the tossaway society that we live in now.”
A few hours earlier, people were sipping apple cider and nibbling on pieces of fruitcake at the Leffingwell House Museum while its president, Dayne Rugh, played Christmas carols on the piano. It was a bustling atmosphere and he estimated the event draws about 300 people every year.
One thing many people who enter the house might not know is that when it was built, Christmas was not celebrated in New England. There were laws passed that forbade these types of traditions, thought to be too pagan.
Among the more than a dozen interpreters in period attire around the house was Kevin Titus, dressed as William Henry Harrison.
While Harrison is one of the lesser-known presidents, Titus is fascinated by him in part because he had the shortest presidential term, dying from pneumonia in 1841 after giving the longest inauguration speech. Harrison had family in Norwich and wrote a letter saying he would visit the Leffingwell House but died before he could.
Also in uniform but as a visitor was 11-year-old Coby Jones, who came with his mother and grandmother. All three wore Santa hats, and Coby also wore colonial attire that his aunt got him for Christmas. He became interested in colonial history because of the hit Broadway show “Hamilton.”
His mother, Sara McCormick, said she was born and raised in Norwich but wished she learned more about Norwich history in school. They first came to the Leffingwell House in April to see the Lexington Alarm Letter and have visited multiple times since.
Helen Sakellarides heard about Leffingwell's “Christmas in the Colonies” event on Facebook and decided to drop in. She lives in Norwichtown and has frequently driven by the house but never stopped in.
“I learned so much today, and it really brought the history alive,” she said, adding, “It just really made my day.”