Mansfield Training School and Hospital: Superintendent’s House (1870/1931)

The Connecticut Colony for Epileptics was established in Mansfield in 1909. At that time, it was believed that people with epilepsy should be segregated in a “colony” where there daily lives would be carefully regulated. The Colony was located in a rural area and included a farm that supplied the institution with food and provided occupational therapy. An older cross-gable brick farmhouse, built in 1870, became the Superintendent’s house. In 1917, the Colony merged with the Connecticut Training School for the Feeble-Minded in Lakeville and the resulting institution, the Mansfield Training School and Hospital, continued in operation until 1993. The school’s campus would grow to include over fifty buildings. The Superintendent’s house was remodeled in 1931 with the addition of two 2-story wings and an entry portico. The building later served as the Administration Building and then as the Physical Plant. When the school closed, some of the buildings were demolished and the rest were divided between the Bergin Correctional Institution and the University of Connecticut, which uses the property as its Depot Campus. The former Superintendent’s House is on what was the Bergin Correctional Institution‘s property at 251 Middle Turnpike (Route 44). The prison closed in 2011 and the land was transferred to UCONN in 2015.

Masonic Hall, Old Saybrook (1830)

The building at 52 Old Post Road in Old Saybrook was built in the 1830s and began as a one-story carpenters workshop used by the builders of the First Church of Christ on Main Street. When the church was completed, the building was moved from the town green to a site on Old Boston Post Road and a second story was added. For a time, Frederick Kirtland had a shoe store in the building. In its second location, the building stood east of where Thomas C. Acton would build a library in 1873. Acton, who had bought the house across the street, also acquired the former church workshop in 1870 and at some point thereafter it was moved to its current location west of the library. In 1903, Acton rented the building to the Masons of Siloam Lodge No. 32. In December, 1907 he sold the building and it was formally purchased by the Masons in February, 1908. The facade of the Masonic Hall has been altered over the years. In the early twentieth century, there was little decoration, but at some point afterwards it was elaborately ornamented with pilasters, dentil moldings and a fan light in the gable. Most of this ornamentation has since been removed (the street number was also changed from 50 to 52). In 2005, Siloam Lodge No. 32 merged with Trinity-Mt. Olive Lodge No. 43 and Pythagoras Lodge No. 45 to form Estuary Lodge No. 43.

Lee Methodist Church – Tolland Grange Hall (1880)

The building at 95 Tolland Green in Tolland was erected in 1880 as the Lee Methodist Church. It was the second Lee Methodist Church built on the site, replacing the earlier church, built in 1794. That building was moved back 200 feet and in later years was known as the “ole vaporatin’ house” where apples were dried. It was torn down after suffering damage in the Hurricane of 1938.

The Lee Methodist Church merged with the Tolland Congregational Church in 1920, forming the Federated Church of Tolland (now the United Congregational Church of Tolland). In 1959, the old 1880 church building was sold to the Tolland Grange #51. Formed in 1886, the grange had already been using the building for meetings since 1932. In addition to the Grange, other groups, such as the Boys Scouts, met in the building over the years. Before St. Matthew Catholic Church was built, the parish used the Grange Hall as its temporary home and celebrated the first Catholic mass in Tolland there on July 12, 1964. The Grange put the building up for sale in 2012 and it was sold the following year.

636 Old Post Road, Fairfield (1954)

The Georgian Revival-style building at 636 Old Post Road in Fairfield was built in 1954 and housed the Fairfield Historical Society for half a century. In 2007 the Society erected a new building, the Fairfield Museum and History Center, at 370 Beach Road. Their former building is now owned by the neighboring First Congregational Church and houses the administrative offices of Operation Hope.