Old Stone Church, New Preston (1824)

New Preston Hill Congregational Church.

The Old Stone Church, also known as the Hill Church and the Stone Meetinghouse, is located adjacent to the New Preston Hill Green in the town of Washington. The successor to two earlier church buildings, erected in 1754 and 1766, that no longer survive, the Stone Church was built in 1824 by the Ecclesiastical Society of New Preston. It was at the heart of a rural community that included two other stone notable buildings: a tavern, built in 1800 across the street, and a schoolhouse, built in 1850 behind the church. In 1853 the congregation built a new church at New Preston Center, which was developing as an industrial center. The New Preston Hill area has maintained its rural character and the Old Stone Church, which lacks modern heating, continued to be used during the summer months.

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New Preston Congregational Church (1853)

The New Preston Congregational Church, located at 15 Church Street in the New Preston section of the town of Washington, was built in about 1853. The New Preston Ecclesiastical Society was originally established in 1753 and its first meeting house was located southwest of the common at New Preston Hill (at the intersection of New Preston Hill, Findley, & Gunn Hill Roads). The Society decided to build a second meeting house in 1766 at the northwest corner of the common and this was replaced in 1824 by a stone church building that still exists today and is known as the Hill Church. By the mid-nineteenth century, New Preston Center, a mile to the east, had developed into an industrial center and the congregation decided (after much debate) to erect a new church there in 1853. This is the current New Preston Congregational Church, while the Hill Church is used for summer services. In 1886 the church ordered a Steere & Turner Opus #221 organ which was restored in 1969.

Tomlison House (1860)

Tomlison House in Marbledale

A postcard in the collection of the Gunn Historical Museum in the town of Washington depicts the house at 250 New Milford Turnpike in the village of Marbledale in Washington, describing it as the Tomlinson Home. A real estate site gives a construction date for the house of 1860. Presumably this house is associated with the family of Philo Tomlison, who conducted marble quarrying in Marbledale in the early nineteenth century.

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St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Marble Dale (1822)

St. Andrew’s Church, Marbledale

Last Sunday I featured St. Andrew’s Church in Kent, erected in 1826. Not far away, in the village of Marble Dale in the town of Washington, is another St. Andrew’s Church built about four years earlier, between 1821 and 1822. Both of these Episcopal churches (as well as ones in Caanan and Salisbury) were built at a time when these parishes had Reverend George B. Andrews as their pastor. The parish in Marble Dale was originally established in 1764 in New Preston. Harassed during the American Revolution because they were predominantly loyalist, the members of the congregation temporarily abandoned their original building, but after the war were formally organized as the New Preston Episcopal Society in 1784. After plans to move their church building to be near the Congregational Church fell through, they rented and then purchased a Quaker meeting house, which was used for services until the current church was built. The building was enlarged in 1855 to plans by the Rev. Nathaniel Sheldon Wheaton (1792-1862), who also underwrote for the project. Rev. Wheaton later served (1831-1837) as second president of Trinity College in Hartford.

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Calhoun-Hollister-Anson-Solley House (1866)

Simeon Calhoun built two octagon houses in the town of Washington during the Civil War period. One was erected for Treat Nettleton on Nettleton Hollow Road and the other (pictured above) was built on at 142 Judea Cemetery Road in about 1866. The house was purchased by the Hollister family in 1881. They gave their name to the farm on the property called Holliecroft. Harold B. Anson (brother of James A. Anson), who had a painting company, bought the house in 1941. The Solley family bought the house from Anson in 1950. They operated Holliecroft as a dairy farm until 1960 and then focused on growing crops. The house was owned by Nancy F. Solley for many years

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Salem Evangelical Covenant Church (1889)

Former Salem Covenant Congregational Church, Washington CT

Swedish immigrants in the town of Washington began work on a church adjacent to the bridge over the Shepaug River in the Washington Depot section of town in 1888 and it was dedicated on the Sunday before Christmas 1889. Originally known as the Swedish branch of the Congregational Church in Washington, the congregation split off on its own in 1892 to become the Salem Evangelical Covenant Church. That same year, other Swedish immigrants erected Trinity Lutheran Church just across the street. The Salem Covenant Church congregation relocated to a new church at 96 Baldwin Hill Road in 1977 and the old church building is now a private home.

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Samuel Nettleton House (1814)

Daniel Nettleton (1766-1829) and his wife Eunice Baldwin Nettleton came from Milford in about 1789 and settled in the town of Washington in an area that came to be called Nettleton Hollow. Across from the original Nettleton homestead, their son Samuel (1791-1852) built the house at 230 Nettleton Hollow Road in in 1814. He moved into the new house while his parents and his brother, Lyman Nettleton, remained in the old homestead, which stood until it was taken down in 1867 by Samuel’s nephew, Treat Nettleton, who moved into an octagon house built for him nearby. The Samuel Nettleton House remained in the family for well over a century and a half.

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