There are a number of questions about the house at 603 Main Street in Somers, which is now owned by the Congregational Church next door. It is traditionally dated to 1810 and is said to have been built by Otis Bradley. The nomination for the Somers Historic District notes that it has more of the appearance of a Greek Revival house, c. 1835. It is known to have been occupied by the Otis family from 1876 to 1953. It was bought by the church in 1972.
The brick Greek Revival house at 24 Hawkins Road in South Britain was built in 1835 for Judson Manville, a hat manufacturer. As mentioned in South Britain, Sketches and Records (1898), by W. C. Sharpe, in a section headed “The Hat Business,”
This was at one time quite a flourishing business here. One of the early shop owners was Judson Manville, whose shop was west of the church, on the east bank of the Pomperaug River, where a portion of the shop is yet standing. He employed about a dozen men, among whom was Thomas Solley, who afterwards had a hat shop at Kettletown, which was then a thriving community, most of the men being hatters by trade.
In the nomination for the South Britain Historic District, the house is listed as the Mrs. B. Chatfield House, built in 1850. The house’s wraparound porch is an early twentieth-century addition. The house was used for many years as the office for the nearby Hawkins Company factory.
Austin Williams was an abolitionist and conductor on the Underground Railroad in Farmington. In 1841 he constructed a building on his property where the Amistad captives stayed until their return to Africa. After their departure, he built his own house (127 Main Street) just to the southeast and converted the dormitory into a carriage house. After the Civil War, Williams was a director of the Freedman’s Bureau of New England and New York.
At 3192 Bronson Road in Fairfield is the parsonage of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church. It is a Greek Revival residence built in 1874. As related in Ye Church and Parish of Greenfield (1913), by George H. Merwin:
About the time Mr. Smith accepted the call to Greenfield, the parsonage matter was agitated again, perhaps to some extent due to the suggestion in the pastor’s letter of acceptance in regard to a home “for himself and family free from rent.” A committee consisting of Morris M. Merwin and Oliver Burr was appointed to investigate the matter. This committee, on June 24, 1873, reported that Dea. William B. Morehouse had that day purchased an acre of land of B. B. Banks for $1,000, and offered the same to the society for $400; and in addition Dea. Morehouse offered $1,000 more as his subscription towards a building. Other subscriptions were coming in rapidly, and the parsonage question was now solved. The following were appointed as a building committee: Oliver Burr, M. M. Merwin, Rev. H. B. Smith, Dea. W. B. Morehouse and Dea. N. B. Hill. Work was started at once by the contractor, Mr. Uriah Perry, but the building was not entirely completed until the spring of 1874, the pastor’s family living in the meantime in the small house owned by Mr. B. B. Banks.
Some of the items of expense in connection with the building of the parsonage are these:
- One and one-fourth acres land $1300.
- Contract for house $3575.
- Extras on house $150.
- Barns and out-buildings $405.
- Well, etc. (dug by Joel Banks) $231.
- Fences, painting, etc. $325.
- Flagging stone, drain, etc. $200.
A vote of the society ordered that no more be spent on the parsonage than should be subscribed for that purpose, so no indebtedness was incurred.
A sign on a tree on the Parsonage property reads:
The Parsonage
Dedicated to
Rev. H.B. Smith in
1876, the Church’s
150th Anniversary
Located at the corner of The Green and Academy Hill in Watertown is a schoolhouse constructed in 1846 (moved c.1850). It was built by the nearby Christ Church as a private school and served as the town high school later in the nineteenth century. The building was later used by the church as a parish house. It is now owned by the Taft School.
The First Baptist Church of Branford is located on the Town Green at 975 Main Street. As described in Volume 1 of Everett G. Hill’s A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (1918):
Some embers of a former strife blazed up again when in 1838 some Baptists from Wallingford proposed to establish a church of that faith in Branford. There was opposition as soon as they sought a site for a building. For a time they worshipped in private houses. Their first public baptism was held in the river near Neck Bridge in 1838, and naturally attracted a crowd. Finally the town fathers kindly consented to let the new brethren build on the site of the old whipping post on the green, and there they did in 1840. The building was improved in 1866, and still serves the people.
The building at 227 Main Street in the village of Southport in Fairfield was built in 1833 as a bank. It was originally a branch of the Connecticut Bank of Bridgeport, chartered in 1832. The branch later became the Southport Bank, independently chartered in 1851 (it became the Southport National Bank in 1865). After an embezzlement (Oliver T. Sherwood, the bank’s Cashier, was charged with defaulting on bank notes after he fled town; he was later imprisoned) the Southport National Bank went into receivership in 1903 and was reorganized as the Southport Trust Company. The building was converted into a residence in 1923.
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