Robert N. Bassett Company Factory (1892)

After crossing the Housatonic River from Derby to Shelton, there are factories on either side of Bridge Street. The factory on the north side displays the date 1892. On the 1919 “Aero View of Shelton, Connecticut” published by Hughes & Bailey, the factory (located at 9 Bridge Street) is labeled the Robert N. Bassett Co., Inc., “Brass, Steel and Wire Specialties.” The company had begun across the river in Birmingham (now Derby) producing wire corsets. The upper two stories of the mill were added in 1912. The structure was later called the Birmingham Building.

Thomas Clarkson House (1850)

The Thomas Clarkson House, at 212 Huntington Street in Shelton, is a later Greek Revival house, built c. 1830-1850. According to the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Huntington Center Historic District, the Clarkson House is essentially a Colonial half-house form with a shallow hipped roof. In addition, the doorway probably once had a traditional Greek Revival-style wide frieze and cornice, but this part of the entablature was later removed.

Trap Falls Schoolhouse (1872)

The Trap Falls School is a former one-room schoolhouse located at the Shelton History Center complex. Built in 1872, it originally stood at the corner of Huntington Street and Trap Fall Road in Shelton. It was later acquired by the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company, which constructed the nearby Trap Falls Reservoir and used the school building as a storage shed. The company donated it to the Shelton Historical Society in 1971.

White Hills Baptist Church (1839)

The White Hills Baptist Church was built in 1839 on School Street in the White Hills section of Shelton. Ferris Drew of Carmel, NY, who had purchased part of a farm in White Hills in 1837, provided land for the church and later additional land for a cemetery. At first the church did not have its own pastor, so pastors from other towns served on alternate Sundays until 1852. The church closed for regular Sunday services in 1916. Today, it is maintained by the Upper White Hills Cemetery Asoociation and is used for community events.

Marks-Brownson House (1820)

The Marks-Brownson House in Huntington (part of Shelton) was built between 1820 and 1825 for Hezekiah Marks, a merchant who served in the Connecticut General Assembly in 1828 and 1830. After his death in 1835, at the age of 54, the house was sold to the Bennett family, who sold it in 1866 to Henry Israel Brownson. The house eventually passed to his son, Harry Booth Brownson, who married Gertrude Buckingham in 1904. Making their living as farmers, the couple lived in the house for over sixty years. In 1960, the Brownson Country Club opened on land gifted for one dollar by the Brownsons, who wanted to save it from development. The Shelton Historical Society acquired the Brownson House in 1971, also for a dollar, and moved it from its original location, at the corner of Old Shelton Road and Shelton Avenue, to the corner of Ripton and Cloverdale Roads, where today it is open to the public as part of the Shelton History Center. The house is presented as it would have been during the early years of the marriage of Harry and Gertrude Brownson.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Shelton (1818)

Connecticut’s first Anglican parish was established in Stratford in 1707. Daniel Shelton, an Anglican who had settled in Stratford and later in Repton (later called Ripton and now Huntington, which was later incorporated into the city of Shelton) and been one those who had earlier petitioned for the Stratford parish, petitioned in 1722 for another parish to be established in Repton. Clergy from Stratford began making the trip to Repton to conduct Anglican services in private homes until the Repton parish was founded in 1740. A church building was soon constructed and survived until 1811. In that year, Sidney DeForest, seeking to rid the church’s belfry of pigeons by shooting them, ended up setting the church on fire with tow wadding from his musket. DeForest settled the claims for damages by giving some of his property as payment. The current St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was then built on the site of the earlier church. It was begun in 1812 and completed in 1818 and continued to stand next to what is now called Huntington Center Green. In 1870, a number of changes were made, in the Gothic style, to the interior of the church.