At 25 Union Street in Deep River is a house built in 1838 to serve as the parsonage for the nearby Deep River Congregational Church.
Deep River Congregational Church Parsonage (1838)
John Gladding House (1825)
The house at 11 Union Street in Deep River was built c. 1825 by John Gladding, a joiner (he may have constructed the house himself). Alphonso C. Pratt, who owned the house from 1911 to 1924, held patents for the design of a grommet and others for grommet-making apparatus.
Abner Kirtland House (1767)
The house at 19 Union Street in Deep River was built c. 1767 by Lieut. Abner Kirtland (1745-1834). He was the son of Capt. Philip Kirtland (1693-1764), one of the first settlers of what would become Deep River. Abner Kirtland served in the Revolutionary War, being commissioned 1st Lt. in Col. William Worthington’s Regiment of the 7th Conn. Militia in 1780.
Mount St. John School (1908)
St. John’s Industrial School, a Catholic residential school for boys in need of care, was established in Hartford in 1904. An impressive new building for the school, overlooking the Connecticut River, was built in Deep River in 1907-1908. The school was staffed by the Xaverian Brothers, a worldwide teaching congregation, until 1919. An orphanage for boys in Hartford, run Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery, moved to the site in Deep River and the Sisters of St. Joseph administered the home and school until 1958. Over the years, many additions were made to the facility, which evolved into a Home and School for Boys. The residential program closed in June 2013 and in September The Academy at Mount Saint John (135 Kirtland Street, Deep River) reopened as a Clinical Day School.
Southworth-Williams House (1802)
Alpheus S. Williams was a Union general in the Civil War. He was born in 1810 in Saybrook (now called Deep River). [see General Alpheus S. Williams (1911), by Joseph Greusel and Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Alpheus S. Williams (1880)] In 1817, his father, Ezra Williams, bought the house at the corner of Main and Elm Streets in Deep River. It had been built in 1802 by Jabez Southworth, Sr. The year before, Ezra Williams had partnered with George Read, Phineas Pratt and others to form Ezra Williams & Company to manufacture ivory combs.
Deep River Public Library (1881)
Deep River’s town library was formed in 1900 and was at first located in a room in the Town Hall. Although plans had been made at various times to construct a library building, by the 1930s this had still not been done. Eventually, the 1881 home of Richard Spencer, who had been a President of the Deep River National Bank and a state senator, was purchased by the Library Association and donated to the town as a gift. The Queen Anne/Stick Style House, located on the corner of Main and Village Streets, was renovated and modified to become a library, under the direction of Harvey J. Brooks. The Deep River Public Library opened in 1933, with a new addition being constructed in 1995.
Deep River Congregational Church (1834)
The Saybrook Colony, later the town of Saybrook, eventually divided into several towns. Lyme broke off as early as 1655, with Chester, Westbrook, Essex and Old Saybrook (the earliest settled area of Saybrook) following in the nineteenth century. The second Congregational Church to be founded in what had been the Saybrook Colony (and the earliest in what is now the town of the Essex) was established in Centerbrook in the 1720s. The residents of the area of Saybrook called Deep River attended this church until 1833 (Centerbrook remained part of the town of Saybrook until it was added to Essex in 1859). Deep River’s own Congregational Church was built in 1833. Worship was held in the church as soon as it was completed, although it was not officially dedicated until it was entirely paid for the following year. The town of Saybrook was renamed Deep River in 1947. Earlier this year, the Church celebrated its 175th anniversary.