Litchfield County Courthouse (1889)

Four successive Litchfield County Courthouses have stood in the center of Litchfield. The first, built in 1752, was a plain building resembling a meeting house. The second, designed by William Sprats and built in 1797, was destroyed by fire in 1886. It was quickly replaced by a new courthouse, which also burned, just after its completion in 1888. Another new courthouse, designed by Waterbury architect Robert Wakeman Hill and constructed of Roxbury granite, was completed in 1889 in the Romanesque Revival style. As Litchfield embraced the Colonial Revival movement in the early twentieth century, a remodeling of the courthouse was undertaken in 1913-1914 to add space and also to better reflect the colonial character of the town. Georgian-style corner quoins were added to the structure and the original turreted tower was replaced with a new cupola. The building now serves as the Litchfield Judicial District Courthouse.

Norfolk Library (1888)

Frederic S. Dennis, in The Norfolk Village Green (1917), writes that the earliest library in Norfolk dates to 1761:

A library company was then formed, and about 150 volumes were collected; and this library remained in activity about thirty-five years, when it was dissolved, the books to be distributed among the original donors. In 1824 a second library was formed and incorporated with 142 volumes, besides periodicals. Like its predecessor it was short lived and dissolved in 1866. The books passed into the hands of Mrs. Charlotte Mills, and Miss Louise Stevens, who subsequently founded a third library, which was in the hands of a committee. This new Library was placed on a business basis and a yearly fee of one dollar was charged for membership. It continued for a year and its books formed the nucleus of a fourth Library. In 1881 Miss Isabella Eldridge opened a reading room in the Scoville house on the Green, and the books of the third Library were placed there.

Isabella Eldridge’s reading room was so successful, that in 1888 she decided to endow a library in memory of her parents, the Rev. Joseph Eldridge and Sarah Battell Eldridge. She hired architect George Keller of Hartford to design the Norfolk Library, which was constructed in 1888 and opened to the public in 1889. The library has a first floor built of red freestone, quarried at Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The upper floors feature fish scale shingles and the original roof had fluted Spanish tile, since replaced. In 1911, Keller designed a reading room, added to the rear of the Library. A later addition is the children’s wing of 1985, designed by Alec Frost and also constructed of Longmeadow red freestone.

Raymond Library (1885)

When Albert C. Raymond of Montville and East Hartford died in 1880, he left $10,000 in trust for the establishment of a library in Montville. A library had existed in Montville Center as early as 1823: the Union Library, a private institution located in an old store on the site of the present Congregational Church. As described in Henry A. Baker’s History of Montville (1896),

After the death of Mrs. Raymond, 16 Sept., 1883, the sum donated for the founding of the Raymond Library was received from the executors of the estate of Albert C. Raymond by the Raymond Library Company, who immediately caused a library building to be erected at a cost of two thousand dollars. The building was a beautiful brick structure, built under a contract by Mr. Robert Turner of Norwich, and completed in the winter of 1884-5. At the annual meeting of the Raymond Library Company, held October 14, 1885, the library building was formally opened to the public; a bountiful collation was prepared by the ladies of the town, which was partaken of and heartily appreciated by all the persons who gathered at the chapel of the Congregational church at Montville Center on the occasion.

The Raymond Library has since been expanded with some very obvious modern additions.

Beardsley and Memorial Library (1898)

This week, we’ll be looking at libraries again. Our first library is the Beardsley (and Memorial Library) in Winchester. As explained by Robert S. Hulbert, in Winsted; the Development of an Ideal Town (1906):

The educational awakening of Winsted was also helped in 1874 by Mrs. Delia Ellen Rockwell Beardsley, widow of Elliott Beardsley, who gave into the hands of [seven] trustees $10,000 for the founding of a library [in West Winsted]. For twenty-five years the books were in a pleasant room in the Beardsley building. Before his death in 1897, the late Jenison J. Whiting began the construction of the Memorial Library. The building was completed [in 1898] after his death by Mrs. Whiting, and with the lot on which it stands, representing a total outlay of about $20,000, was given to the town for the reception of libraries. The Beardsley Library, whose funds had been augmented by a gift of $1,000 from Miss Martha Beardsley at her death, and by $600 given by Rufus E. Holmes of Winsted, was placed in the building. The town then voted [in 1899] an appropriation of $1,500 annually, to meet, with other expenses, those for which a small fee had been charged, and the books in the library were made free to the public.

Today, the Beardslee and Memorial Library continues as a private non-profit organization, voted by the citizens of Barkhamsted, Colebrook, and Winchester to be their public library.

New Britain National Bank (1927)

The New Britain National Bank building is on on West Main Street, next to the buildings which now serve as New Britain’s City Hall. It was built for the Commercial Trust Company in 1927, which failed during the Great Depression and was bought out by the New Britain National Bank in the 1930s. The building, which is also known as the Anvil Bank for the anvil motif which recurs frequently in its intricate brickwork, was designed in the Romanesque Revival style, with some Gothic elements as well. The bronze doors feature designs of beehives and Mercury and Buffalo coins. The building’s interior is also impressive: the lobby makes use of marble and bronze and has a 30-foot ceiling. The structure has been mostly vacant since 1996 and has suffered from deferred maintenance. After several years of planning to restore and adapt the bank building to new uses, work began a few years ago to covert it for stores and residential units, although progress was later halted by the economic downturn.

Second Congregational Church of Winsted (1899)

The Church of Christ is a Baptist and Congregational church in West Winsted, Winchester. An Ecclesiastical Society in Winsted was first formed in 1778, half way between the societies of Winchester and Barkhamsted. In 1853, as related by John Boyd in Annals and Family Records of Winchester (1873), a committee was appointed to consider “the organization of a second Congregational church and society to be located in the West Village.” The committee reported “that the large increase of population, and the prospect of a more rapid accession in the future, rendered an increase of religious privileges and accommodations indispensable to the well-being of the community; and recommended an early organization of an Ecclesiastical society, and the location and building of a house of worship.” The new congregation constructed a church in 1857, later replacing it with the current church, dedicated in 1899. With the erection of a new church, the old building, together with an adjoining chapel built in 1860, were purchased and remodeled for business purposes. The dedication of the new church was described in the Hartford Weekly Times of September 7, 1899. The reporter explained that the church was built “of Torrington granite, trimmed with Long Meadow sand stone and is of French Gothic style.” The first and second churches of Winsted, faced with expensive repairs after the Flood of 1955, merged together with the First Baptist Church in 1957. The new federation was called the Church of Christ (Baptist and Congregational). 119 members of the old First Congregational Church, fearing that the use of their church building would be discontinued in favor of using just the Second Congregational Church for worship, left the federation. Their church is now known as the First Church of Winsted (also Baptist and Congregational), while the Second Church building continues under the name of the Church of Christ.

Edit: As noted in the comment below, the church has changed its name to the Second Congregational Church of Winsted.

Royal Arcanum Building (1904)

The Royal Arcanum is an organization created in the nineteenth century to provide health insurance to its members. A group of businessmen, who were members in Norfolk, hired architect Alfredo Taylor to design an impressive multi-purpose building in the town center. The large structure was designed to have commercial businesses on the first floor and meeting spaces for the Royal Arcanum Council and the Masonic Lodge on the third floor. It also housed the town’s post office and fire department. The style of the brick building, constructed in 1904-1906, combines Romanesque and Chateauesque elements, with decorative terra cotta panels. Today, the building continues to contain offices, shops and apartments.