Hicks-Stearns Family Museum

The Hicks-Stearns Family Museum is a Victorian historic house museum located on the town green in Tolland, Connecticut. The house was built in 1788, when it served as a tavern. It was occupied by the Hicks family from 1845 until 1970.[1] Along with the Old Tolland County Jail and Museum, the Tolland County Courthouse, and the Daniel Benton Homestead, the Hicks-Stearns Family Museum is one of Tolland's four major landmarks.[2]

Hicks-Stearns Family Museum
Front view of the Hicks-Stearns Family Museum
Hicks-Stearns Family Museum is located in Connecticut
Hicks-Stearns Family Museum
Location within Connecticut
Established1978 (house built in 1788)
Location42 Tolland Green
Tolland, Connecticut 06084
USA
Coordinates41.871419°N 72.368123°W / 41.871419; -72.368123
TypeHistoric house museum
CollectionsFamily heirlooms
Websitewww.facebook.com/hicksstearns/

House

The Hicks-Stearns family house is a transition home, featuring a colonial-era kitchen and a Victorian-era parlor and furnishings.[1] Collections include family heirlooms, cloth tea balls, Victrola, and faux bamboo furniture.[3]

The house's original owner was Benoni Shepard, a Congregationalist deacon and Tolland's first postmaster.[4]

The museum hosts tours, concerts, and holiday programs from May through December.[5]

Hicks family

The house's most prominent resident was Ratcliffe Hicks (1843-1906), eldest son of Charles Hicks, a successful merchant from Providence, Rhode Island, and Maria Stearns. Ratcliffe was a Brown University graduate (1864), successful lawyer and industrialist (president of the Canfield Rubber Works in Bridgeport), and Connecticut state legislator.[6] Ratcliffe renovated and expanded the family house with many Victorian elements, adding a front porch and a distinctive three-story tower.[7]

When Ratcliffe Hicks died in 1906, his will established a trust (worth a quarter of his estate) to start a school of agriculture and forestry in Connecticut. The school opened in 1941 as part of the University of Connecticut. UConn's Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture and the Ratcliffe Hicks Building & Arena are named after him.[8]

Dedicated in 1951, UConn's Elizabeth Hicks Residence Hall is a women's dormitory named after Ratcliffe's daughter, painter and philanthropist Elizabeth Hicks (1884-1974).[9] Elizabeth willed the Tolland family home to a nonprofit trust to convert into a museum.[5]

References
  1. Walker, Patricia Chambers; Graham, Thomas (2000). Directory of Historic House Museums in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-0344-1.
  2. McWilliams, Kathleen (2014-08-18). "Tolland Plans Its 300th Anniversary Celebration". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2020-05-27.
  3. American Association for State and Local History (2002). Directory of Historical Organizations in the United States and Canada. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 978-0-7591-0002-2.
  4. Waldo, Loren Pinckney (1861). The Early History of Tolland: An Address Delivered Before the Tolland County Historical Society, at Tolland Conn., on the 22d Day of August and the 27th Day of September, 1861. Press of Case, Lockwood. pp. 103–104.
  5. "Hicks-Stearns Family Museum, Tolland". cityseeker. Retrieved 2020-05-27.
  6. Benedict, George Grenville; Burton, Richard (1898). Men of Progress: Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in and of the State of Connecticut. New England magazine. pp. 199–200.
  7. "Lojeri Productions: Hicks-Stearns Clip". www.lojeriproductions.org. Retrieved 2020-05-27.
  8. "Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture: Then & Now" (PDF). University of Connecticut. 2016.
  9. Roy, Mark J. (1998-04-13). "East Campus residence hall namesakes' ties bridge the years". UConn Advance. Retrieved 2020-05-27.
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