Little is known about Daniel Belden, who was an early (or perhaps the very first) occupant of the house at 1210 Mill Street in Berlin. Considered to be one of the finest Greek Revival-style houses in town, the Belden House was built c. 1855. Today, it appears to be part of the Mill Crossing Office Complex.
John Havens Sawyer was a Mystic ship captain engaged in fishing and coastal trading. In 1835 he built the Greek Revival-style house at 5 Stanton Place in Mystic. Sawyer and his wife, Elsey, only lived in the house a short time. In 1838 he sold it to Charles Mallory and moved to Key West, Florida.
The Masonic Lodge in Cheshire, Temple Lodge #16, was established in 1790. The Lodge has had various meeting places over the years. The current Masonic Temple in Cheshire is located at 9 Country Club Road. According to the Town of Cheshire’s Property Record Card for the building, it was built in 1900.
The house at 21 Gravel Street in Mystic was built in 1840 by Capt. Elisha W. Denison. In 1854, It was acquired by Capt. Martin Smith, a sea captain who commanded the ships Niagara, Simoon and Selma. The house’s grand front porch was added around 1900.
At 40 Main Street in Bethel is a building known as the Second Meeting House. It was built in 1842 and was indeed the second meeting house to be erected by the First Congregational Church of Bethel. The first meeting house, built in 1760, had burned down. In 1865, a strong wind blew down the second meeting house’s steeple, which fell through the roof of the building. As related in James Montgomery Bailey’s History of Danbury (1896): “In the spring of 1865, during a gale, the house was injured by the falling of the spire, and having been repaired, was sold to the town and moved ten rods west of its former site.” In 1866, the church erected its third and current meeting house, located at 46 Main Street, where the first meeting house had once stood. After being sold to the town, the Second Meeting House served as Town Hall until 1939. Today, the building is the headquarters of the Bethel Historical Society, which rents out the hall. It is also the meeting place of Bethel VFW Post 935.
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.
The Greek Revival house at 97 Chaplin Street in Chaplin was built c. 1840.
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