First Black US Representative’s House

First Black US Representative’s House
Joseph Rainey House
299 Palisado Avenue, Windsor

This handsome house is located on historic Palisado Avenue, home to several historic house museums… But not this one.

So here’s the deal here. This guy, Joseph Rainey, was an amazing and impressive guy. His tenure and accomplishments in the US House of Representatives was amazing in the post-slavery days. But he was born and raised in South Carolina and served the residents of South Carolina, not Connecticut. During one of his five terms, he bought this house as a summer residence and according to the Connecticut Freedom Trail people, he “owned it for the remainder of his life.” I have no idea how much time this great man spent up here, but this VERY comprehensive history of Rainey never mentions the Nutmeg state or Windsor once.

But I’m confident Rainey owned this house and I know he was the first black Representative and that, my friends, counts as a CTMQ superlative.