Methodist meetings were held in Higganum (in Haddam) in the Old Red Schoolhouse from 1834 until it burned down in 1857. The congregation then met in private home until they built a church at 248 Saybrook Road in 1862. It is the only Methodist Church remaining in the town of Haddam (an earlier church erected in 1837 on Walkley Hill Road is no longer standing).
Nelson Cheffee was an architect who built a number of Greek Revival houses along Main Street in Ellington. Pictured above is the house at 108 Main Street, built in 1839. I’m not sure if the architect Nelson Chaffee is the Nelson E. Chaffee (1807-1870) who patented an improvement in drying machines in 1849. (more…)
In 1731 residents of the Shippaug district of Woodbury petitioned the General Assembly to have their own minister during the winter months, when travel to the meeting house in Woodbury was difficult. The petition was granted and the following year a small meeting house was erected on the crest of the first ridge west of the present Roxbury-Woodbury town line. In 1743 the residents of Shippaug became a separate Ecclesiastical Society from Woodbury under the name of Roxbury. A new meeting house on the same site was built in 1746. The next meeting house was built in the present town center of Roxbury (approximately at what is now 12 Church Street) in 1795. The following year, Roxbury was incorporated as a town. The current meeting house of the Roxbury Congregational Church was built at 24 Church Street in 1838.
The Thomas A. Smith House in Northford (in North Branford) is a Greek Revival residence built in 1860. Located at 16 Old Post Road, it was built for Thomas A, Smith, president of the Paug Manufacturing Company, and was later owned by Stanley T. Williams. In 1957 the house became the parish hall for the Northford Congregational Church.
The Woodbury United Methodist Church, located at 4 Church Street in Woodbury, was erected in 1839. It replaced an earlier church the Methodists had built on the same site in 1824. The origins of the church are described in the History of Ancient Woodbury (1854) by William Cothren:
About the year 1790, before the general conference was formed in 1792, the first Methodist sermon in Woodbury was preached in the open air, in the street under the Rock, on which the Masonic Hall stands, by Rev. Samuel Wigdon, who was sent to preach in Litchfield circuit. This town was added to that circuit, and there was occasional preaching here after that to such as would “hear the word.” The first class was formed some time between the date of the first sermon and the year 1800. The church continued in a feeble condition till 1812, when Elijah Sherman, senior, better known to the people of this communion, and of the town, by the name of ” Father Sherman,” became dissatisfied with the Episcopal church, on account of some difference of opinion, as is understood, in relation to the adoption of the Episcopal church constitution, joined the Methodist denomination, and became very active and zealous in advancing its interests. The exact date of this transaction is not now at hand, but he was appointed the first regular class leader in 1812. Previous to this, the several ministers who had officiated here, had fulfilled the duties of that office. At this organization of the class, in 1812, the number of communicants was forty. From this time till 1824, “Father Sherman” threw open the doors of his house, and it became the place of public worship for this church. Having increased in numbers and means, they erected the first meeting-house on the site of the present church edifice, in 1824. But the class and social meetings of the society continued to be held at the house of Mr. Sherman, till the erection of the present commodious church, in 1839. This edifice is furnished with a good basement, and from that date the social meetings of the church have been held in it. The society here continued to constitute a part of some other circuit till 1832, when the circuit of Woodbury was formed, and this became the place of residence for its ministers.
In 1878 the church building was turned 90 degrees to face Church Street instead of Main Street and 21 feet in length were added to the rear.
Various construction dates can be found for the house at 19 Long Hill Road in Middle Haddam (in the Town of East Hampton). In the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Middle Haddam Historic District, it is listed as the Benjamin Clark House, built in 1827. Clark sold the property a few years later. Steamboat captain Heman H. Crosby lived in the house in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century it became the home of Raymond Peck, an engineer at Pratt & Whitney, and his wife, Helen Bates Peck. After her husband’s death in 1969, Helen Peck (1909-2008) continued to reside in Middle Haddam. According to her obituary in the Hartford Courant she was an active volunteer and a historic resource who was instrumental in Middle Haddam being listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In her later years, Peck was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. A 2003 article in the Hartford Courant (“Neighbors Stir Up A Probate Debate,” by Gregory Seay, May 17, 2003) describes issues that some neighbors had with renovations made to the property (called Mulberry Farm) by Peck’s court-appointed conservator. The article describes the house as being 155 years old (giving it a date of 1848). The sign in front of the house reads: “Mulberry Farm Circa 1841 Helen B. Peck.”
The house at 28 Pratt Street in Essex was built in 1844 by Captain Ezra D. Post, a sea captain, who had previously resided in the house of his father-in-law, Gurdon Smith, at 9 Pratt Street.
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