184 Sunset Rd Hartland, CT 06027

The Old Brockway House Built by Edward Brockway, who in 1799 was one of the first residents of Hartland to leave New England for the fertile plains of Ohio, the 19th-century American equivalent of the Promised Land! This rare old "primitive" colonial appears to qualify as what many historians consider a "First Period" house. Built decades before the American Revolution, it contains many elements of a home erected closer to the 17th century than the 19th. It is located on a dead-end street with Tunxis State Forest abutting on 3 sides. Tunxis State Forest is approximately 9,152 acres divided into sections on both sides of the Barkhamsted Reservoir. It contains large areas of unbroken forest in the town of Hartland and other neighboring towns. The house design is classic early American, featuring a central chimney, multiple hearths in each first-floor room, a narrow winding staircase from the entry hall to the upper story, and built-in corner cupboards with shaped shelves. The floors include both wide hardwood and softwood boards. All the interior doors are board-and-batten style, using feathered-edge paneling and either Suffolk or Norfolk latches. Much of the first-floor ceiling consists of rough, adze-cut exposed posts and beams, including magnificent summer beams. In some rooms, the floorboards from the room above are visible, still bearing old saw marks from a vertical up-and-down saw blade. Architectural elements include cantilevered floors on both the second story