Waterbury Assembly of God (1900)

Waterbury Assembly of God is a church located at 101 Prospect Street in Naugatuck. The church was built c. 1900. I think it may have been built originally as a Baptist Church, as described in History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut, Vol. I (1918), by William J. Pape:

Among the citizens living in the Salem society soon after 1800 were a number of Baptists, who first worshipped in the church in Waterbury. In October, 1817, sixty persons living in Salem, Prospect and Bethany were set off from the Waterbury society to organize a new church in the localities indicated. Two meeting-houses were built, one on Fulling Mill Brook, and by December 22, 1819, the second was organized in the Straitsville locality.

It is the one on Fulling Mill Brook which later became the Naugatuck Baptist Church, with a fine church edifice on Prospect Street, in Union City.

St. Mary Roman Catholic Church, Willimantic (1905)

Happy New Year! The first Mass to be celebrated in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, 46 Valley Street in Willimantic, took place on January 1, 1905. The parish had been established to serve French Canadian immigrants. Over a century later, the church was undergoing renovations when a fire broke out on May 16, 2013. There was extensive fire, smoke and water damage and firefighters had broken through stained glass windows to fight the fire. Closed for two years while undergoing restoration work, the church was rededicated on June 20, 2015.

Salvation Army, Bristol (1891)

Merry Christmas! Pictured above is the Salvation Army’s Bristol Worship and Service Center at 19 Stearns Street in Bristol. Much altered over the years, the building was erected in 1891 for the Swedish Lutheran Lebanon Congregational Church (later simplified to Lebanon Lutheran Church), founded in 1887. In 1963 Lebanon Lutheran merged with Bethesda Lutheran Church of Forestville to form Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. The newly formed church erected a new building on Camp Street in Forestville and the old building on Stearns Street was sold to the Salvation Army, which had previously had its headquarters on Prospect Street.

St Philip the Apostle Church (1937)

St Philip the Apostle Church, Ashford

St. Philip the Apostle Church, 64 Pompey Hollow Road in the Warrenville section of Ashford, was built of native stone in the 1930s through the efforts of the local farming community. Most were of Slovak descent and the church has a Byzantine copper onion dome. The church was erected through the leadership of Father William J. Dunn, who was sent to the new parish, which originally encompassed nine rural towns in eastern Connecticut, in 1921 and celebrated Masses in the old farmhouse in which he lived until the new church was completed. It was designed by New York architect Paul Chalfin, a summer resident of Warrenville.

Clinton AME Zion Church (1950)

93-central-st-ame-zion-church

Clinton AME Zion Church in Ansonia was originally organized in Derby in 1874/1875. Early meetings were held in a hall over J. P. Swift’s Store, later Pucella’s Garage, at the corner of New Haven Avenue and Gilbert Street in Derby. The church affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1882 and adopted the name its pastor, Rev. J. J. Clinton, in 1888, incorporating as Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church. A new church building was erected on Derby Avenue, but the church later decided to relocate to Ansonia, which had a growing African American population. According to Ansonia assessor’s information, the new church, located at 96 Central Street, was built in 1950. The church had to be repaired after it was damaged in the flood of 1956 (see “$5,800 Spells Restored Hopes For Flood-Hit Ansonia Church,” Hartford Courant, February 4, 1956).

Willimantic Camp Meeting Association (1860-1948)

willimantic-camp-meeting-association

Camp meetings were a notable feature of religious life in nineteenth-century America and some continue in existence today. This site has already featured the Plainville Campground and Camp Bethel in Haddam. Another religious campground is the Willimantic Camp Meeting Association. It was established by Methodists who held the first meeting here on September 3, 1860. Today it is an interdenominational Evangelical Association. At its height the camp had 300 buildings, primarily cottages built by individual churches or families. A third of them were destroyed by the hurricane of 1938 and another hundred were lost to neglect over the ensuing decades. 100 cottages remain and constitute an architectural treasure. (more…)