1815 Knapp House
1815 Knapp House -The house was built about 1815 and the first record of it is in 1817 when it was sold to Perry Smith.
An 1835 deed describes the house as "...bounded on all sides by highway, containing about half an acre more or less...". The Old Albany Road (a dirt track) ran up the east side of today's Green behind the house then curved to the `west to continue up the hill. It is said that the road passed so close to the side porch that the lady of the house "could almost have clasped hand with friends in a covered wagon, starting on their long, perilous journey to Ohio and the Western Reserve." The covered wagons carried freight, as well as families moving West. They loaded at Elijah Boardman's Store (reconstructed on the Historical Society's property), which stood just north of his residence on the `west side of the Green" (now Cramer & Anderson).
It became the Knapp family home in 1838 when Levi S. Knapp, a shoemaker from Danbury, bought the property, which was held in his wife's name Eliza Roberts Knapp, from Royal Davis. Levi Knapp was a prominent man in town; he owned a shoe store on Bank Street that was the meeting place of The Topeka Club, a local men's club, and was one of the incorporators of New Milford Savings Bank when it was organized in 1858. Levi Knapp lived to 93 and at his death in 1893 the property passed to his eldest son, Gerardus. Ten years later Levi's younger son Frederic inherited it and immediately passed the property to his three children Harry, Margaret and Mary. Photographs and memorabilia of Vice Admiral Harry S. Knapp's career are displayed in the house and the bell on the Green came from his flagship. Margaret and Mary Knapp used the house as a summer residence, living in Hartford the rest of the time.
The house and its furnishings were given to the Historical Society by Mary Knapp in I 956 and is open to visitors during normal Museum hours.