Deacon John Davenport House in Stamford, Connecticut was built in 1775 and is noted for its long association with the Davenport family that was prominent in Stamford’s early history. Located atop Davenport Ridge with a commanding view of Stamford, it is a beautifully preserved example of the Connecticut farmhouse that was home to generations of the Davenport family. A saltbox house with Federal-style features added at a later date, the property also includes a cabin and carriage house and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

John Davenport led a distinguished life of public service. He was born at Stamford in 1752, the son of the Hon. Abraham Davenport, who was a Fairfield County judge and grandson of John Davenport, a minister of the Stamford church. He received a college education, graduating from Yale at eighteen in 1770, tutoring for a year, and receiving his master’s degree in 1773. In October 1776, during the height of the Revolutionary War, John Davenport was elected to the House of Representatives. of the Connecticut General Assembly. him at the age of twenty-four and he served the public in this capacity for the next twenty years.

In 1777 he was appointed commander of a regiment fighting for American independence. He was stationed in Darien when the Rev. Moses Mather and several members of his congregation were captured by the British. Pastor was eventually traded for prisoners held by the Continental Army whom he was instrumental in obtaining.

John Davenport became a founding member of the Order of the Cincinnati of Connecticut, founded in 1783 to preserve the ideals and fellowship of American Revolutionary War officers and to press the government to honor promises it had made to those who fought in the war. war.

He was selected Deacon of the Congregational Church at Stamford in 1795 and was said to be a “Model of earnest and active piety”. John Davenport was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1799 as a federal congressman and served until 1817. He declined reelection after having been in public service for thirty-eight years and spent the last thirteen years tending the estates of the.

General Lafayette was received at the home of Deacon John Davenport in 1824 when hundreds of Stamford citizens gathered to greet the French general during his visit to the United States nearly fifty years after the Revolutionary War.

On display at the Stamford Historical Society are the memoirs which read: “Friday, August 20, 1824: The cavalcade arrived at Stamford about half-past five, having received a greeting at Mianus’s Landing, and the mansion Hon. with its merry inhabitants, particularly distinguished for many beautiful women, it exhibited all the life and joy of a city”.

Located at 129 Davenport Ridge Rd in Stamford, Connecticut, the Deacon John Davenport House with its commanding view of Stamford from the top of the hill makes it one of the most significant historic Stamford homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places.