Most Holy Trinity Church, Wallingford (1887)

The first Catholic Mass in Wallingford was celebrated on December 22, 1847 in the home of James Hanlon on Main Street. Wallingford became a mission of St. Rose of Lima Church in Meriden in 1851. Services were soon held in Union Hall. As described in the 1895 Souvenir History of Wallingford, Connecticut:

The necessary funds for building of a church were soon after raised, the subscription list being added to liberally by the Protestants of the town. The first church was a building forty by sixty feet in dimensions, the corner stone of which was laid November 23, 1857 the ceremony being performed by Rev. Thomas Quinn. Before the building was completed, during the saying of mass, part of the unfinished floor gave way, resulting in the injury of several persons and causing great confusion.

The church was completed in 1859, but the new Holy Trinity parish would again become Meriden’s mission because of the decrease in members with the outbreak of the Civil War. Holy Trinity was restored to full parish status in 1867 and the cornerstone of a new church (68 North Colony Street) was blessed on September 24, 1876. Quoting again from the Souvenir History:

In 1875, the old church having become too small for the growing membership, ground was broken for a new edifice. On account of the scarcity of funds, progress was slow in the building of the new church, and while in an uncompleted state, in the summer of 1878, the old church was completely demolished by the tornado visiting Wallingford at that time, thirty members of the congregation being included among the citizens who perished thereby. The following year the new church had become so far completed as to admit of services being held in the basement, the present edifice, however, was not completed until 1887. The church property is among the finest of the State. The church is of cuneiform shape and a brick structure, 148 feet in length and 104 feet in its extreme width. From the floor to the apex of the roof the height is nearly 50 feet. The windows of the edifice, presented to the church, are marvels of art. Connected with the church is a handsome parochial residence[.]

St. Mary’s Church, Simsbury (1936)

The first Catholic Mass celebrated in the Hopmeadow Street area of Simsbury was on October 5, 1902. Simsbury Catholics had previously been traveling to St. Bernard’s Church in Tariffville. The Church of the Immaculate Conception was soon built on the north side of Plank Hill Road and dedicated on May 29, 1904. The parish, organized in 1921, eventually outgrew this wood frame structure and a new brick church. Located at 940 Hopmeadow Street, it was dedicated to St. Mary on February 23, 1936.

South Congregational Church, Granby (1918)

Happy Easter! Granby‘s South Congregational Church was organized on Salmon Brook Street in 1872. Originally called the Congregational Society of Salmon Brook, it met in a hall on the second floor of a building erected for the Granby Library Association in 1869. This structure, later also used as a Town House, burned down in 1917. While one newspaper editor suggested that it was time for the South Church to merge with Granby’s First Congregational Church, this notion conflicted with local beautification plans aimed at developing Salmon Brook as an ideal New England village. The Church and the Town worked together to erect a complex of four community buildings in the Colonial Revival style: the new Church, the Church’s Community House (also available to local groups not affiliated with the Church), a schoolhouse and a library. The 1918 Church was designed by the H. Wales Lines Company of Meriden. The gable-roofed, transverse section at the rear, designed by Carl R. Blanchard, Jr. of New Haven, was added in 1950.

I Am That I Am Ministries (1906)

The church at 23 Franklin Street, at the corner of Arch Street, in Ansonia was built between 1900 and 1906: it does not appear on the 1900 Sanborn insurance map, but does appear on the 1906 Sanborn map, where it is labeled “Swedish Church.” In recent years it was the Evangelical Baptist Church (founded in 1958). It was placed on the market in August 2015 and was sold last July. It is now I Am That I Am Ministries Inc.

Advent Chapel, Prospect (1886)

Adventists began meeting in the Town of Prospect about 1850 and in 1886 built a chapel on the Green. As described by J.L. Rockey in his History of New Haven County (1892):

The Adventist chapel, at the Center, which is a small but not unattractive frame building, affords a place of worship for members of that faith. It was built within the past six years. The meetings previous to that time were held in private houses, at “Rag Hollow” and other localities. Moses Chandler was one of the most active in the latter movement to give the denomination a permanent place in the town, and the meetings were for a time held at his house. Other members belong to the Tuttle, Tyler, Hotchkiss and Beecher families. In 1890 there were about a score of members, and Seth Woodruff was the minister.

About 1900 the Prospect congregation merged with an Adventist church in Waterbury. Their former chapel, located at 10 Center Street, became the Chapel school house and then the Prospect Senior Center.

Our Lady of Fatima Church, Hartford (1988)

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Parish was established in Hartford in 1958 to serve the local community of immigrants from Portugal and the Azores. The founding pastor, Father José Dias Martins da Silva, purchased a vacant Danish Lutheran Church on Russ Street where the parish worshiped until the basement chapel of a new church was completed in 1986. Our Lady of Fatima Church, located at 50 Kane Street in Hartford, was dedicated on April 30, 1988. The parish also later erected a community center.

Living Proof Church (1848)

A Baptist church was established in Ashford in the village of Westford in 1780. In 1848 a new church was built in Warrenville section of town, as Richard M. Bayles describes in his History of Windham County, Connecticut (1889):

John Warren, Esq., manifested much anxiety to have a Baptist church organized in the western part of Ashford, in a village on the turnpike from Hartford to Boston and Providence. The First, or as it was often called, the Knowlton meeting house, was not considered so central, nor easy of access as many thought desirable. But the people in the vicinity of the old church were greatly opposed to giving up worship in their sanctuary, and continued for a time to worship there after another congregation was formed in “Pompey Hollow,” as the place was then called. Mr. Warren offered a fund to support worship in the Hollow, and the name of the village was changed to Warrenville. A church was organized January 22d, 1848[.]

The meeting house was completed that same year (1848). Later called the United Baptist Church, it is now known as Living Proof Church.