Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Ansonia

Howell-Baldwin House (1757)

The house at 79 Elm Street in Ansonia was built in 1754 by Joseph Howell. It was later the home of Dr. Silas Baldwin (1729-1813), Derby’s third physician (Ansonia was at that time part of the town of Derby). He married Mary Plumb of Ridgefield in 1755. According to the Sixth Report of the National Society of the Daughter of the American Revolution (1904):

Dr. Silas Baldwin, Revolutionary patriot […] Assisted in establishing American independence while acting in the capacity of a patriot. He accepted the oath of fidelity to the United States April 13, 1778. Dr. Silas Baldwin enlisted June, 1776, in Captain Johnson’s company Fifth Battalion, Wadsworth’s brigade, Colonel Douglas’s regiment to reenforce Washington’s army at New York; August 29-30, 1776, engaged in the retreat to New York; was at the battle of White Plains October 28. Term expired December 26. (History of Derby, p. 187.)

No. 24 on muster roll of Capt. Elijah Humphrey’s company, Connecticut Regiment of Foot, commanded by Col. Return Jonathan Meigs, was Silas Baldwin, enlisting March 27,1777, “on command,” which maybe received in explanation of the record on page 208, Connecticut Men in the Revolution, which says: “Silas Baldwin in Humphrey’s company, Connecticut Line, enlisted March 27,1777; deserted August, 1779.” (Connecticut Men in the Revolution, pp. 208, 407; muster roll of Capt. Elijah Humphrey’s company. Copy deposited.)

Dr. Silas Baldwin was born in Waterbury and died in Ridgefield, but generally resided in the section of Derby that is now Ansonia. He is buried in Ansonia’s Colonial Cemetery. (more…)

Real Estate sites give the date of the Josiah Smith House, at 74 Elm Street, at the corner of Main Street, in Ansonia, as 1797. The house was built by Josiah Smith and was owned by several generations of his family before it was sold to Jonah Platt. It is a late Georgian/Early Federal style house with a fan light window above the front door and a later Victorian front porch.

Sheldon Curtiss House (1789)

At 5 Elm Street in Ansonia is a house built circa 1789 and altered in later years (including the addition of a Victorian-era front porch). Called the Sheldon Curtiss House, it was an inn in the early nineteenth century, serving the coach road between New Haven and Humphreysville (now Seymour).

St. Anthony Church, Ansonia (1915)

Lithuanians in Ansonia sought to establish an ethnic parish when they incorporated a lodge of the Lithuanian Society of St. Anthony in 1907. Bishop John J. Nilan of the Diocese of Hartford rebuffed their request, insisting that the Lithuanians remain within Assumption parish. The Lithuanians began to build a church in 1912 without episcopal approval, hoping that the bishop would reverse his decision, but he maintained his previous position. In 1915, an appeal directly to Rome succeeded and St. Anthony parish was given sanction by the Pope to operate as an independent parish. St. Anthony’s Church was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day 1915 by Father Matthew Pankus of Bridgeport.

Update: In 2015, the church celebrated its 100th anniversary and then closed.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church (1916)

St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

In 1897, Immigrants in Ansonia from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire established one of the first parishes of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the United States. The first St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was constructed in 1897-1898 on May Street. In 1910, the congregation purchased land at 105 Clifton Avenue, where the current church was built in 1915-1916. Plans for the church were sent by an architect from Lviv, Halychyna and the architectural firm of Johnson and Burns of Hartford was selected to complete the blueprints. The church’s roof is covered in red tiles and the domes are clad in copper. A major restoration of the building took place in 1987-1989.

Ansonia Opera House (1870)

Built at 100 Main Street in Ansonia in 1869-1870, the Ansonia Opera House served as the lower Naugatuck Velley’s premier theater and public hall until the Sterling Opera House was built in Derby in 1889. The Ansonia Opera House’s hall is on the third floor of the the building, while stores are located on the first floor. Until 1910, the hall was run by a corporation called the Ansonia Hall Company, in which Jeremiah Bartholomew and his descendants held a controlling interest. Connecticut’s oldest opera house, for sixty years it was the center of Ansonia’s civic and social activity and entertainment, including graduations, dances, recitals, basketball games and boxing matches. Sometime after 1896, additional windows were added to the building‘s second floor. In 1971, the state fire marshal’s office closed the hall to public assemblies. It was later rented out as a gym and then as storage space and is currently in need of restoration.

80 Beaver Street, Ansonia (1900)

The Queen Anne-style house at 80 Beaver Street in Ansonia was built around 1900. In more recent times, it has been converted into a three-family house and is currently for sale.