The house at 401 Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield is thought to have been built about 1800 by Josiah Robbins. It originally stood to the south and was later moved to its current location. During the Revolutionary War, Josiah Robbins (1724-1794) served in Capt. Hart’s company in Col. Samuel Blatchley Webb‘s regiment from 1777 to 1781. He was then transferred to the Sappers and Miners and served under Capt. David Bushnell at the Battle of Yorktown.
Dated to c. 1840-1850 (or perhaps as early as 1820), the hip-roofed house at 431 Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield was the home of Charles Wolcott [possibly Charles Wolcott (1819-1900)]. In the mid-twentieth century it was owned by William C. Stuart. The chimney has been move from its original position.
Jesse Lee, a pioneering Methodist clergyman, preached the first Methodist sermon in Connecticut in Norwalk in June, 1789. He continued his journey through the state, preaching in various towns, and reached Wethersfield in March, 1790. There he preached the town’s first Methodist Sermon in the North Brick School House, now the site of Standish Park. Itinerant Methodist preachers continued to visit Wethersfield in the ensuing years. Starting in 1821, Wethersfield Methodists were served by a circuit preacher. As related in a Brief Historical Sketch of the Wethersfield M.E. Church (1882):
The early services were held in Academy hall, against the solemn protest of some of the leading men of the town, who no doubt thought they were doing God service by resisting what might have seemed to them as a pernicious innovation of the established creed of the State. So bitter was the feeling toward the Methodists that the place where the meeting was appointed was not only forbidden them, but the building was barricaded, and the means for lighting it were taken away. Great indignation was manifested among the people who had assembled, and an officer of the town was detailed to read the riot act and bid them disperse.
But those friends of the church in the early days were not men who were easily discouraged. Persevering in their purpose they gained access to the hall, and when Mr. Pease was about to open the meeting, an officer appeared at the door and ordered the people away under penalty of the law. Mr. Pease, holding the only candle in the hall, boldly replied, “We have not come here for any riot, but to serve the living God; let us pray.” The meeting then proceeded without further trouble, and proved productive of much good.
The town’s first Methodist Church building, now Temple Beth Torah, was erected on Main Street in 1824. The building, moved 26 feet onto a new stone foundation, was much enlarged and rebuilt in the Queen Anne style in 1882. The Wethersfield United Methodist Church erected a new church building, at 150 Prospect Street, in 1959. A 2005 addition serves as the church’s Family Life Center.
Built in 1795, or perhaps earlier, the house at 76 Prospect Street in Wethersfield was originally the home of Joseph Adams (1755-1801), who operated a mill. Shortly before his death he married Mary Forbes, widow of Leonard Dix, and moved into the Dix House on Wolcott Hill Road. The Adams House was then occupied by his son, Joseph Adams, Jr. (1783-1834), who kept a general store on Main Street.
The building at 275 Main Street, at the corner of Hartford Avenue, in Wethersfield, was built c. 1874-1876 as a Baptist Church. Declining membership led the church society to vote to disband in 1918 and deed their Main Street property to the Town of Wethersfield for use as a library. The town decided not to proceed with that project and in 1922 the building was sold to Russell K. Bourne D.S.C. Post of the American Legion, which changed it name to the Bourne-Keeney Post 23 in 1949. The name honors Russell K. Bourne, who was killed in action in 1918 during the First World War, and Robert A. Keeney, who lost his life when the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1945. The second floor hall of the building maintains the deck of the Minerva, used as training ground for the town’s Sea Scouts. In 2014, the Legion Post sold the building to the Griffith Academy, which teaches Irish dance. The Academy had been renting the Hall for many decades. The veterans continue to use the building as well, now renting the basement.
The Greek Revival house at 118 Broad Street, across from Broad Street Green in Wethersfield, was built by Frederick Bulkeley in 1825. The Greek Revival house has later nineteenth-century stylistic alterations. Frederick’s son Stephen Bulkeley later built an Italianate house next door.
Benjamin Bulkeley was the cousin of Capt. Charles Bulkeley, who built the impressive gambrel-roofed house at 56 Broad Street Green in Wethersfield. Benjamin built his own house at 106 Broad Street c. 1792. The house has later nineteenth-century alterations.