Gothic - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Shiloh Baptist Church, Hartford (1915)

Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford is the city’s fourth oldest black church. It began in 1889 after a split in the membership of Union Baptist Church. The church began in the home of Lucy Roy and then used various halls temporarily, until occupying a church on Mather Street, built in 1902. The current church building, at 350 Albany Avenue, was built in stages. As the Hartford Courant reported on December 7, 1914:

It was decided to build upon the pay-as-you-go plan, and the vestry of the edifice was built, the cornerstone being laid December 4, 1911. The new vestry was dedicated in February, 1912. Since this dedication, this part of the church has been the meeting place of the parish members. Last winter, the temporary roof over the vestry was troublesome because of its leaking. To repair it would have involved the expenditure of some $1,500, and it was decided to make one piece of work of raising the structure to completion.

The completed church, designed by L. D. Bayley, was dedicated on June 27, 1915.

United Methodist Church of Hartford (1905)

Pages 138 to 139 of my new book, Vanished Downtown Hartford, describe the first two church buildings used by Hartford’s First Methodist Church. The first, at the corner of Chapel and Trumbull Streets, was built in 1821. After the church moved further west in 1860, the former church was used for businesses (including as the office of local architect John C. Mead from 1879 to 1889). The second building, on Asylum Street, was used by the church until 1905. Its tower and Romanesque Revival front facade were removed in 1911, when the building was converted to commercial purposes. The current church edifice was built in 1904 to 1905 on Farmington Avenue, near the West Hartford line. The church is now called the United Methodist Church of Hartford. It merged with St. Paul’s Methodist Church in 1974 and with the South Park Methodist Church in 1982.

German Lutheran Church of the Reformation (1898)

The German Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Hartford was organized in 1880. The church acquired the former St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Market Street, which it occupied until 1898. In that year, the church sold the building, which became St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church. The German Lutheran Church then moved to a new building at 49 Charter Oak Avenue. Designed by Albert Fehmer, it was dedicated January 22, 1899. For a brief period, in 1906-1907, the church was used by St. Paul’s English Lutheran Church (as related in a Hartford Courant article from April 3, 1921, “St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Reaches Fifteenth Year”). That church moved its services to the Y.M.C.A. building, but later returned to Charter Oak Avenue, acquiring the German Lutheran Church’s property in 1909. Efforts to consolidate the two church did not work out, however, and the property was returned to the German Lutheran Church in 1911. St. Paul’s Church eventually moved to a building at the corner of Park Street and Park Terrace. The German Lutheran Church of the Reformation merged with the German Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, located at the corner of Babcock and Russ Streets, in 1916. This united church finally merged with St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in 1943 to form Grace Lutheran Church. The church on Charter Oak Avenue was sold. In the twentieth century it became Gospel Hall and is now Greater Joy Mission Church Of Deliverance. The church edifice has lost its original small steeple and entry porch with two side stairs. Its three memorial stained glass windows in the front gable have been covered up (and possibly removed).

Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church (1894)

Former Church of the Immaculate Conception, Park Street, Hartford

It’s Hartford Church Week on this blog! The Church of the Immaculate Conception, at 560 Park Street in Hartford, was built in 1894 to serve the many Roman Catholic immigrant factory workers who were then moving to the Frog Hollow neighborhood. The Gothic Revival church was designed by Michael O’Donohue. In 1981, a priest discovered a homeless man frozen to death near the church steps. In response, the church’s basement was opened to homeless men. Church members volunteered to cook meals and donate clothing. The parish became a leader in public outreach in Hartford. In 1990, with the number of homeless people in Hartford increasing, the Immaculate Conception Shelter & Housing Corporation (ICSHC) was formed to confront the issue. When Immaculate Conception Parish merged with St. Anne Parish in 2000, ICSHC purchased the former church property

Osborn Memorial Laboratories, Yale University (1913)

The gatehouse with two towers of Osborn Memorial Laboratories at Yale University recall the now lost Alumni Hall, designed by A. J. Davis and built in 1853, which had been demolished in 1911. Designed by Charles C. Haight, the Osborn Memorial Laboratories were built in 1913 to be the home for the study of biology at Yale and originally housed both the zoology and botany departments (one in each wing of the building).

Prospect United Methodist Church (1894)

Prospect United Methodist Church, Bristol

The Methodist Episcopal Society of Bristol was formed in 1834 and a church on West Street was completed not long after. As related in Bristol, Connecticut (“In the Olden Time “New Cambridge”) (1907):

The young society was served in turn by noble and faithful ministers. The church multiplied and prospered. During the years 1857-8 the pastor was Rev. John W. Simpson. During this period a revival commenced on Chippins Hill, extended to Polkville (Edgewood) and other places. Conversions were many. On New Year’s Day, 1858, Mr. Simpson preached in the schoolhouse at Polkville. John Humphrey Sessions, who had previously “professed religion” attended the service, and before the meeting closed he was so impressed by a divine power that he here made a complete consecration of himself to God and precious results soon followed. That fact, simple in itself, has meant much to the town of Bristol and to the Methodist Church in particular. Mr. Sessions was an able, vigorous and successful business man. As he prospered the Methodist Church prospered.

In 1880, the congregation grew and moved to a new church, closer to the center of town, at the corner of the corner of Center and Summer Streets. This building was enlarged in 1888 and then replaced by a new edifice, which was dedicated in 1894. By then, the church was known as the Prospect Methodist Episcopal Church (now it is the Prospect United Methodist Church at 99 Summer Street). The church‘s construction was funded by John Humphrey Sessions.

Methodist Episcopal Church of Thompsonville (1884)

The former Methodist Episcopal Church of Thompsonville, in Enfield, is located at 25 High Street. As related in the second volume of the Memorial History of Hartford County (1886), “In 1840, chiefly through the labors of the Rev. John Howson, who had come from England for employment in the carpet-works, the Methodist Episcopal Church of Thompsonville was formed.” The church was officially organized in 1841 and a church edifice was later erected on High Street, east of Pearl Street. The building pictured above was built in 1884, west of Pearl Street. The church, later known as the Enfield United Methodist Church, moved to a modern building on Brainard Road in 1964. The old church was sold to Amvets. It is currently vacant and up for sale.