Located at the corner of Worthington Ride and Sunset Lane in Berlin is a Tudor Revival/Shingle style house built c. 1905-1907 by Charles M. Jarvis, head of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company and a founder of the Berlin Construction Company. The property once included a bowling alley.
At 3015 Bronson Road in Fairfield is a windmill erected in 1893-1894 by Frederic Bronson on his estate, called Verna Farm. Standing 105 feet high, the Bronson Windmill pumped water from a well 75 feet below ground into a 7,500-gallon wooden storage tank 70 feet up inside the windmill. Note: the wheel on top of the windmill was not installed at time the photo above was taken. It remained in operation into the 1930s. The estate became the property of the Fairfield Country Day School, which gave the windmill to the Town of Fairfield in 1971. The windmill was restored around 1980. Damaged after a storm in 1996, the Bronson Windmill was restored under the management of the Fairfield Historical Society. Today it also serves as a cell phone tower: Sprint restored and rebuilt part of the structure as part of its leasing agreement.
The Shingle-style summer cottage at 27 Pettipaug Avenue in the Borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was built in 1881 by Charles Eben Jackson (1849-1923) of Middletown. As related in the Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut (1891):
Charles Eben Jackson was born in Middletown, January 25, 1849. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, Concord, N. H., receiving a thorough preparation for the business activities of life. After leaving school he engaged as a clerk in a mercantile establishment, and later in a banking office in New York city. In 1872 he made the acquaintance of Miss Evelyn Quintard, daughter of E. A. Quintard of New York city, whom he married in 1873, and by whom he has had eight children, seven of them now living. Mr. Jackson has for a number of years been at the head of the Middletown banking house of C. E. Jackson & Co., well known among the reputable financial institutions of the state. He is also vice-president of the Middlesex Banking Company, treasurer of the Berkeley Divinity School, and of the Russell Library Company, and has minor official connection with other institutions of Middletown. He is by religious faith and profession an Episcopalian, being a member and senior warden of Holy Trinity parish.
The cottage later sold to Margaret Cutter Goodrich, wife of Dr. Charles Goodrich, a Hartford obstetrician. The cottage then passed through other owners, being purchased by the Brainard family in 1949. You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 131-134.
In 1881 a summer cottage in the Borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was built by Hariette Fenwick Jackson Giraud (1830-1923) of Middletown. In 1899, the cottage was moved back from Long Island Sound to Pettipaug Avenue by Morgan G. Bulkeley to make way for his new and impressive cottage. The former Giraud Cottage was moved again, this time one lot west, in 1913 to make way for the Davis Cottage. Bulkeley gave the Giraud Cottage, now 12 Pettipaug Avenue, to his son, Morgan Jr. (1885-1926), in 1919 and it was then passed to his widow, Ruth Collins Bulkeley (1887-1973). You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 155-156.
The Second Congregational Church of Manchester was formed and its first house of worship was built in the northern section of town in 1851. A new church was built on the same site, 385 North Main Street, in 1889. It is a Shingle style edifice on a high rusticated brownstone foundation. (more…)
Walter C. Clark, who became president of the Aetna Fire Insurance Company in 1892, built a summer cottage in Fenwick in 1884 on a lot he purchased from Francis Goodwin, who was on his board of directors. After Clark’s death in 1919, the cottage was acquired by Houghton Bulkeley (1896-1966), son of governor Morgan G. Bulkeley. Houghton Bulkeley, who named the cottage Seagrove, was an authority on Connecticut Antiques. After his death, the cottage was owned by the McDowell family. You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 150-153.
The summer cottage at 25 Pettipaug Avenue in the Borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was built circa 1871 on land sold that year to Mrs. Cyrus Knight. Her husband, Rev. Cyrus Frederick Wright was rector of the Church of the Incarnation (later renamed St. James’ Episcopal Church) in Hartford from 1870 to 1877. He resigned after an incident in which church funds were stolen by the parish treasurer. Rev. Knight then served as rector of St. James Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1877 to 1889, but continued to summer in Fenwick. When he became Bishop of Milwaukee in 1889, he and his wife could no longer make the long trip to Fenwick and therefore rented the cottage for the summer. Rev. Knight died in 1891 and his wife, Elizabeth P. Pickering Knight, in 1912. The cottage was then owned for a time by Heywood Whaples. It was purchased in 1952 by Ellsworth Grant (1917-2013) and his wife, Marion Hepburn Grant (1918-1986), the sister of Katharine Hepburn. The cottage has later rear additions. You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 128-131.
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