With a commanding location overlooking Washington Square at the intersection of Church, Main, Water and Washington Streets in Norwich is the Beriah S. Rathbun House and Apartments. It was built about 1869 at 6-8 Church Street by Beriah S. Rathbun, a carpenter who lived in the building and took in boarders. He came to Norwich in 1840 and built a house in the winter of 1841-1842 which he sold in 1868 when he constructed his house/apartment building. In Norwich he was one of thirty-seven people who organized the Central Baptist Church, constructing the stairs of the original church building..
Rathbun (see pdf) married Martha D. Coburn, his second of three wives, in 1846. She was a soprano in the choir of the Central Baptist Church. One Sunday in 1849, Ithamar Conkey, organist and choir master at the church, became very irritated that Mrs. Ratbun was the only member of his choir to show up for the morning service. After playing the prelude, he closed his organ and went home in disgust. Later he felt remorse for having walked out. Reflecting on one of the hymns to have been sung that morning to John Bowring’s text, “In the Cross of Christ I Glory,” Conkey decided to write a new tune for the text and named it Rathbun, in honor of the faithful soprano (see pdf).
To the left of the Rathbun Building is a house built around 1737 by Captain Joseph Kelley, one of Norwich‘s earliest shipmasters.