A Borough Icon: The Elkanah Cobb House

The Elkanah Cobb House on Water Street is perhaps one of the most photographed houses in the Borough. Dating to 1769, it’s one of the earliest examples of a gambrel roofed cottage and one of the oldest in the village. It’s one-and-a-half stories and has unusual 9-over-6 sash windows.

The house was owned by Elkanah Cobb (born 1781 in the house), which had been in his family for four generations. He lived there when the British attacked Stonington during the War of 1812 and died at the age of 37 after “experiencing the fear and anxiety attendant upon the partial destruction of his home by the British in 1814.”

According to The Homes of our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn., by Grace Denison Wheeler (1903), the house “stood in the thick of the fight near the [American] battery, and so has many scars received during the bombardment.”