Talcott Brothers School (1880)

Talcott Brothers School

Talcottville in Vernon was once a mill village based around the Talcott Brothers Company’s cotton-spinning mills. In mill villages, like Talcottville, the company would provide its workers with housing, as well as other services, like a library, a store and a school. The Talcott Brothers built a Romanesque Revival-style one-room school house in 1880 at 97 Main Street in Talcottville. It replaced the company’s earlier school house of c. 1860, which according to tradition, was moved across the street and became a residence. The Talcott Brothers School became part of the Rockville school system in the 1950s.

Strong Farmhouse (1878)

Five generations of the Strong family have operated Strong Farm in Vernon, one of the last farms to continue in the suburban town. The farm was established by Nathan Morgan Strong, who built the farmhouse at 274 West Street (at the corner of Peterson Road) in 1878. Originally a dairy farm, after 1965 Strong Farm switched to turkeys, pumpkins, and other crops. Norman Strong, who died in 2010 at the age of 93, was known as the “turkey man” of Vernon. He was happy to show local school children the working of the farm, a tradition continued by the Strong family today, who are working to transform the farm into a non-profit historical agricultural education center. In September, the house sustained damage when a car crashed into it.

Vernon United Methodist Church (1834)

The church at 401 Hartford Turnpike in Vernon, now home to the Vernon United Methodist Church, was originally located in Bolton. As written in A Historical Sketch of Bolton, Connecticut (1920), by Samuel Morgan Alvord,

The Methodist Church began its work at an early date in Bolton with the first camp meeting ever held in a New England town. The noted itinerant preacher Lorenzo Dow was the leader and great crowds were attracted to his meetings which were held May 30 to June 3, 1805, near the Andover town line directly east of the South District School house. […] The first Methodist Church was built at Quarryville in 1834 near the present edifice. This building was sold to the Universalists in 1851 and moved some distance west and a new church was built the following year.

The Universalists moved the church nearer to Bolton Lake, where it remained until the 1860s, when the Methodist Church in Vernon began. As described in A Century of Vernon, Connecticut, 1808-1908 (1911):

The Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church started from small beginnings, as most of the Methodist churches do, from class meetings. This was in the early sixties. The meetings were held mostly in the Dobsonville schoolhouse and the increasing numbers demanded preachers and the society was supplied by students from Wesleyan University at Middletown. One of the men was Rev. W. W. Bowdish, who at present is district superintendent in the New York Evangelist conference. About 1865 the congregation had increased to such numbers that a house of worship became imperative and the church at Bolton was purchased and moved to Vernon, cut in two and lengthened and is the building now used for worship. Somewhat later the building was improved and a belfry added with a fine bell installed, mainly by the generosity of S. S. Talcott, a prosperous manufacturer, who for many years was the motive power of the society.

An addition to the church was completed in 1989. The church‘s current steeple is not the original.

First Congregational Church of Vernon (1966)

In 1760, the parish of North Bolton (which became the Town of Vernon in 1808) was established, formed from the north part of Bolton and the east part of Windsor’s Second Ecclesiastical Society. The first meeting house of the parish was built in 1762 on what is now Sunnyview Drive. A new building was erected on the Hartford Turnpike in 1826 and was dedicated in 1827. In 1851, the church was moved back several feet. A steeple and columns were also added to the church at that time. In 1896 the church’s spire, which had decayed, was taken down. The spire was eventually replaced, but the Hurricane of 1938 blew down the steeple and damaged the church’s roof, necessitating that the spire again be restored in 1939. The entire building was destroyed by a fire on January 23, 1965. Services were held in the Vernon Elementary School while a new church was built, which opened on September 25, 1966. The new building of the First Congregational Church of Vernon was designed to be as much like the previous Greek Revival church as possible.