The land a tavern-keeper's grandfather claimed and never let go
Last reviewed 10 September 2026 · A two-minute read · 1767–1985
Rocky Hill, Connecticut, grew around ground first claimed by John Robbins in 1638 and held by his descendants until 1914. The brick Georgian house raised on that land around 1767 outlasted the tavern-keeping family that built it, and the town around it saw pewtersmiths, ministers and ballplayers born and buried within its bounds.
The short answer
The John Robbins House in Rocky Hill is a two-and-a-half-story brick Georgian building, traditionally dated to 1767, built on land first claimed by John Robbins in 1638 and held by his descendants until 1914, when the family's grandson, a tavern-keeper, had raised it a century later.
John Robbins House , Rocky Hill, Connecticut. — 2019 · Magicpiano · CC BY-SA 4.0
1638
John Robbins claims raw land on Wethersfield's edge
A man named John Robbins took hold of a piece of raw land on the edge of Wethersfield in 1638. It was still early days for English settlement in the Connecticut River valley. No house stood on it yet. No road ran past it with a name. The land just sat there, passed down inside one family, waiting three generations for someone to build something worth remembering on it.
That someone was his grandson, also named John Robbins. By the 1760s the younger Robbins was running a tavern on the property called The Duke of Cumberland. Taverns in colonial Connecticut were the center of town business, the place travelers slept and neighbors argued politics. A sign from the tavern survives, dated 1773, though one historian has since questioned whether it hung on this exact building or another one nearby.
The house he is credited with raising still stands a few hundred feet from here.
1767 to 1914
A grandson builds a brick house his family keeps
The house itself is 320 meters) from where you stand. It is a two-and-a-half-story brick building. It has a steep gambrel roof. Above its front door sits a Palladian window. Tradition dates its construction to 1767. That year is tied to the tavern sign. But its Federal-style details have led at least one architectural historian to argue it may have gone up closer to 1790. Either way, John Robbins built it on land his grandfather had claimed a hundred and thirty years earlier.
The brick came from local clay, dug from a nearby field and fired for this one purpose. Inside, six rooms still carry their original wood paneling. The attic holds a room built out as a ballroom. This was an unusual flourish for a farmhouse of its era. The family held the property straight through the Revolution, the early republic, and into the twentieth century. In 1914 the Robbins name finally left the deed. This closed out a run on this ground that had started with one man's claim on empty land in 1638.
The house stayed inside the Robbins family for 147 years before anyone outside it held the deed.
1784 to 1853
Two pewtersmiths work the same craft for decades
Pewter ran in the town's hands for generations, the way land ran in the Robbins family's. Ashbil Griswold was born in Rocky Hill in 1784. He spent his life working pewter into plates, cups and spoons. He was not alone in the trade. Another Rocky Hill man, Thomas Danforth III, worked the same metal from 1756 until his death in 1840. That was an overlapping stretch of more than fifty years. Two men held one craft across most of a century. They worked in the same small town. The Robbins name sat on one deed for nearly three centuries.
Two pewtersmiths, born decades apart, worked the same trade in the same town for most of a century.
1760 to 1778
A young counterfeiter dies here at eighteen
Not everything here lasted. David Farnsworth was a counterfeiter. He made and passed fake money. He died in Rocky Hill in 1778, at eighteen years old. Nothing in his short life carried forward the way the Robbins land did. The pewter trade did not either. He is a name attached to this town for a moment, not for generations.
Not everything that touches this ground stays this long.
March 2026
A Jeep lands in the Connecticut River near Ferry Park
The river has outlasted every family who ever stood beside it. In March 2026, a woman drove a Jeep into the Connecticut River near Ferry Park. She ended up about 35 feet from the bank, in the water. Emergency crews got to her and pulled her out. The river kept running afterward the way it always had, indifferent to who happened to be passing over it that day.
The land under the brick house is still there, holding its shape long after every name that has been written on it.
Read the ground you are standing on
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Early modern
circa 1767
Built around 1767, the John Robbins House stands about 300 meters northeast and is considered one of Connecticut's finest examples of brick Georgian architecture.
A short walk southwest, an abandoned bridge once carried the Hartford–Middletown streetcar line over a small creek, its stone wall now collapsing into the water.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikimedia Commons
1784
Ashbil Griswold, another American pewtersmith, was born here in 1784 and lived until 1853.
In March 2026 emergency crews rescued a woman from a Jeep that had entered the Connecticut River near Ferry Park.
Era background — not a record of this tile · NBC Connecticut
Questions about this place
Answered in one sentence, then in full above
What was here before the John Robbins House was built?
Raw, unbuilt land claimed by John Robbins in 1638, which passed down through three generations of the same family before his grandson built the brick house on it.
When was the John Robbins House built?
Tradition dates construction to 1767, tied to a surviving tavern sign from that era, though one architectural historian has argued the house's Federal-style details suggest a date closer to 1790.
Who was the John Robbins House named for?
It was named for John Robbins, grandson of the first John Robbins who claimed the land in 1638, and the builder who put up the tavern called The Duke of Cumberland and later the brick house itself.
How long did the Robbins family own the property?
The Robbins family held the land from 1638, when the elder John Robbins claimed it, until 1914, when the Robbins name finally left the deed.
What happened at Rocky Hill in 1778?
David Farnsworth, a counterfeiter who made and passed fake money, died in Rocky Hill in 1778 at eighteen years old.
