Connecticut Curiosities

From the front, it looks like any grand home in Hartford, but from the side, well, The Austin House is not quite what it seems.

The Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry is a unique place, home to one of the leading puppetry schools in the world as well as dozens of antique puppets and marionettes, making it just a little bit creepy, too.

Home to such curiosities as the Feejee mermaid and the 4,000-year-old mummy Pa-Ib, the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport is dedicated to the colorful history of the King of the Humbugs.

Boothe Park proves the old adage, “If you have time, money, space, some significant eccentricities and the inclination to build stuff, then you too can create a bizarre memorial to yourself that will last for generations!”

Center Church in New Haven is a little different from your normal centuries-old place of worship as it was built over a cemetery — not on, but over, as the original tombstones and graves sit as they have for 300 years in a crypt beneath the raised-up building.

According to local history, notorious pirate Captain William Kidd visited Milford during his final voyage in 1699, a stop along the way to Boston (where he would be subsequently arrested and imprisoned before being returned to England for trial and execution). Although he actually buried treasure at Gardiners Island just off of Long Island, it’s always been believed that he also hid a portion of his fortune on Charles Island, possibly beneath a giant boulder known as Hog Rock. And of course, being a good pirate, he cursed anyone who would go looking for his treasure.

Sure, you can get your car washed in any number of fine establishments, but how many of them have a dinosaur ripping through the roof?

Rarely does a location steeped in wealth, affluence and luxury seem capable of bringing doom and woe to those who live there, but such is the case of Dunnellen Hall.