Bronson B. Tuttle House (1881)

In 1858, John Howard Whittemore formed a company with Bronson B. Tuttle to produce malleable iron hardware, a company that was eventually known as Naugatuck Malleable Iron. Tuttle’s brick house, unlike that of his partner Whittemore, survives today in Naugatuck Center, at the north end of Church Street. Built in 1879 to 1881, the brick and brownstone residence, designed by Robert Wakeman Hill of Warterbuy, is Queen Anne in style, elaborated with elements of other styles. The gable ends and tower dormers are decorated with a quarter sunburst design. There is quatre-foil-pierced terra-cotta cresting along the roof line. The original wraparound porch was later removed. The house remained in the Tuttle family until 1935, when it was given to the Borough of Naugatuck, the house has served as a school and is now the offices of the Naugatuck Board of Education.

Naugatuck Savings Bank (1910)

The Naugatuck Savings Bank, a pressed buff brick and limestone building, was constructed in 1910 on Church Street in Naugatuck Center. The original south end of the building, with a grand entrance, was designed by the New York firm of Crowe, Lewis & Wickenhofer. The north end is an addition, built in 1934. The Bank was initially founded in 1870 as the Naugatuck Savings and Building Loan, formed to enable employees of the the Borough’s rubber-producing companies, Naugatuck Malleable Iron and other industries to build their own homes in town. Today, the building serves as the Bank‘s executive offices.

Thomas Neary Memorial Building (1911)

The Thomas Neary Memorial Building is one of the many impressive buildings constructed in the center of Naugatuck at the turn of the nineteenth century, a period of development sponsored by John H. Whittemore. Located on the corner of Church and Maple Streets, the Neary Building is a business block of offices and shops which anchors a row of commercial buildings on Church Street, south of Naugatuck Green. Completed sometime between 1906 to 1911, the heavily ornamented Neo-Classical Revival structure was designed by the Waterbury firm of Griggs & Hunt (Wilfred Griggs designed many similarly impressive buildings in Waterbury). It was built through the efforts of William J. Neary, a lawyer, in honor of his father, Thomas J. Neary, a businessman who owned and operated a wholesale and liquor business on Water Street.

Howard Whittemore Memorial Library (1894)

The Howard Whittemore Memorial Library, on Church Street in Naugatuck, was built in 1894 as part of the grand beautification plan of industrialist and philanthropist John Howard Whittemore for his adopted home town. The Library, named in honor of a son who had died young, was one of the first of the many structures that Whittemore, influenced by the “City Beautiful” movement, commissioned for Naugatuck Center. Designed by McKim, Mead & White and utilizing the same plan as the firm’s Walker Art Gallery at Bowdoin College, the Neo-Classical Revival library is constructed of pink granite, with buff terra-cotta panels above the windows and in the pediment above the front entrance. The frieze running around the buildings is incised with names of famous authors. The Library has a modern addition to the rear.

Congregational Church of Naugatuck (1903)

The Congregational Church of Naugatuck is on Division Street, across from Naugatuck’s Green (part of which is owned by the Church and is leased to the Borough of Naugatuck). This is the Church’s third building. The first was built on a hill to the east in 1782, a year after the congregation was formally gathered. In 1831, it was moved to a location across from the present church, on the northeast corner of what is now the Green, on land donated by Daniel Beecher, an inn keeper. It was sold and moved again, this time across the street to become a store, being replaced by the second church, built in 1853-1854. The present church was built in 1903 and was designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. It was one of several commissions by the firm around Naugatuck Green arranged by the prominent local industrialist, John Howard Whittemore.

Salem School (1894)

Naugatuck’s Salem School has been in the news recently. Just this past week, the Naugatuck Board of Education, facing a budget shortfall, voted to close the historic school, resulting in the circulation of a petition to save it. Salem School has been open since 1894. Previously, the Union Center School, built in 1852 and located on Naugatuck Green, had served the community. By the 1890s, the Borough of Naugatuck required a new and larger school building. The result was Salem School, the gift of John Howard Whittemore, a wealthy industrialist who wanted to enrich his hometown. He hired the nation’s leading architectural firm, McKim, Mead and White, to design the school, as well as many other prominent buildings in the center of Naugatuck. The old school on the Green was taken down and Salem School was built across Meadow Street in 1893 and opened the following year. The school served all grades until a separate High School building, also designed by McKim, Mead and White, was built in 1905. The Middle School grades were moved out in the 1950s. Salem School, named for “Salem Bridge,” an early name for Naugatuck, has continued since then as an elementary school, but is now slated to close. The future use of the building has not yet been determined.