First Congregational Church of Thomaston (1838)
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013 Posted in Churches, Greek Revival, Thomaston | No Comments »
The Congregational Church in Plymouth Hollow (which would become the Town of Thomaston in 1875) was founded in 1837 and the congregation’s meeting house was built the following year. The First Congregational Church of Thomaston is a Greek Revival edifice located at 135 Main Street.
St. Thomas Church, Thomaston (1908)
Sunday, November 25th, 2012 Posted in Churches, Gothic, Thomaston | No Comments »
By the later 1860s, Academy Hall had become the place of Sunday Catholic worship in Plymouth Hollow, which later became the Town of Thomaston. St. Thomas Parish was established early in 1869 and the first resident pastor was appointed in 1871. A basement chapel opened in 1872, and the completed church was dedicated in 1876, built on land donated by Aaron Thomas, son of the clockmaker Seth Thomas. By the turn of the century, the growth of the parish led to the need for a larger church. The current church was built between 1906 and 1908 at the intersection of East Main and North Main Streets.
Thomaston Railway Station (1881)
Thursday, October 25th, 2012 Posted in Stations, Thomaston, Victorian Eclectic | No Comments »
The Thomaston Railway Station, built in 1881, was part of the Naugatuck Railroad which began operations in September of 1849. The building served as a railway station until 1958, but then suffered from years of neglect and an arson fire in 1993. Since 1999, the station has been the home base of the Railroad Museum of New England, which now operates the Naugatuck Railroad, a scenic train ride between Waterville and Thomaston.
Thomaston Public Library (1901)
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 Posted in Colonial Revival, Libraries, Thomaston | No Comments »
In 1880, the Laura Andrews Free Library and Benevolent Association was established in Thomaston with a gift from Seth E. Thomas, Jr. of New York in memory of his mother. A town library was established in 1898 and the Laura Andrews Free Library Association (as the Association had been renamed in 1882) loaned its library collection to the town. A building for the town library, designed by Griggs and Hunt, was constructed in 1900-1901 on land offered by Randall T. Andrews, a Thomas relative, worker at the Seth Thomas clock factory and an incorporator of the Laura Andrews Free Library Association. In 1906, Andrew Carnegie donated $1,700 to pay off the debt on the library building. In 1971, a new library building was constructed next to the old one. In the 1980s, the original Laura Andrews Library building was renovated as a children’s wing and connected to the 1971 structure.
Thomas-Bradstreet House (1838)
Friday, July 6th, 2012 Posted in Federal Style, Houses, Thomaston | No Comments »
Born in Wolcott in 1785, Seth Thomas first worked in the clock business under Eli Terry and later purchased Terry’s clock-making business in 1810. Thomas moved to Plymouth Hollow (later named Thomaston in his honor) in 1813 and founded the famous Seth Thomas Clock Company, which continued in business until the 1980s. In 1838, Seth Thomas purchased the house at 237 Main Street in Thomaston from Marvin Blakeslee. It had probably been built in about 1825 and is the only remaining of the five houses owned by the Thomas family on Main Street. In 1850, Thomas sold it to his daughter, Amanda Thomas Bradstreet, whose husband, Thomas Jefferson Bradstreet, was a descendant of the Puritan poet, Anne Bradstreet. The house remained in the family until the death of Miss Edith Bradstreet Mather in 2004. The following year, the Town of Thomaston bought the property from her surviving sister, Clara-Louise Mather Riggs. The Thomas-Bradstreet House, restored by the Thomaston Historical Commission, is now a house museum open to the public.
Morse Block, Thomaston (1876)
Friday, April 27th, 2012 Posted in Commercial Buildings, Italianate, Thomaston | No Comments »
Displaying a date of 1876, the Morse Block is an office and commercial building on Main Street in Thomaston. The building seems to have replaced an earlier Morse Block (where clockmaker Seth Thomas had had a store) that was destroyed in a fire.
St. Peter’s-Trinity Church, Thomaston (1871)
Sunday, February 26th, 2012 Posted in Churches, Stick Style, Thomaston | No Comments »
Trinity Episcopal Church, on Main Street in Thomaston, was built in two sections in 1871 and 1880. Representing the transition from the Gothic Revival to the Stick style (with board-and-batten siding, decorative gable bargeboards and a pyramidal steeple) it was built to the designs of Richard M. Upjohn, architect of the Connecticut State Capitol Building. Trinity had begun as a mission of the Episcopal Church in Plymouth (founded in 1740) and became an independent parish in 1869. Since 1996, the church has been St. Peter’s-Trinity Church, formed through a merger of St. Peter’s Church, Plymouth and and Trinity Parish, Thomaston.
