St. Thomas Church, Thomaston (1908)

By the later 1860s, Academy Hall had become the place of Sunday Catholic worship in Plymouth Hollow, which later became the Town of Thomaston. St. Thomas Parish was established early in 1869 and the first resident pastor was appointed in 1871. A basement chapel opened in 1872, and the completed church was dedicated in 1876, built on land donated by Aaron Thomas, son of the clockmaker Seth Thomas. By the turn of the century, the growth of the parish led to the need for a larger church. The current church was built between 1906 and 1908 at the intersection of East Main and North Main Streets.

Vernon United Methodist Church (1834)

The church at 401 Hartford Turnpike in Vernon, now home to the Vernon United Methodist Church, was originally located in Bolton. As written in A Historical Sketch of Bolton, Connecticut (1920), by Samuel Morgan Alvord,

The Methodist Church began its work at an early date in Bolton with the first camp meeting ever held in a New England town. The noted itinerant preacher Lorenzo Dow was the leader and great crowds were attracted to his meetings which were held May 30 to June 3, 1805, near the Andover town line directly east of the South District School house. […] The first Methodist Church was built at Quarryville in 1834 near the present edifice. This building was sold to the Universalists in 1851 and moved some distance west and a new church was built the following year.

The Universalists moved the church nearer to Bolton Lake, where it remained until the 1860s, when the Methodist Church in Vernon began. As described in A Century of Vernon, Connecticut, 1808-1908 (1911):

The Vernon Methodist Episcopal Church started from small beginnings, as most of the Methodist churches do, from class meetings. This was in the early sixties. The meetings were held mostly in the Dobsonville schoolhouse and the increasing numbers demanded preachers and the society was supplied by students from Wesleyan University at Middletown. One of the men was Rev. W. W. Bowdish, who at present is district superintendent in the New York Evangelist conference. About 1865 the congregation had increased to such numbers that a house of worship became imperative and the church at Bolton was purchased and moved to Vernon, cut in two and lengthened and is the building now used for worship. Somewhat later the building was improved and a belfry added with a fine bell installed, mainly by the generosity of S. S. Talcott, a prosperous manufacturer, who for many years was the motive power of the society.

An addition to the church was completed in 1989. The church‘s current steeple is not the original.

St. John’s Roman Catholic Church (1852) & St. John’s School (1887)

At the northern end of Main Street in Middletown is St. John’s Square, where two impressive structures, St. John’s Roman Catholic Church and St. John’s School, stand side-by-side. The church, the oldest in the Diocese of Norwich, was built in 1852, replacing an earlier brick church, constructed in 1843 by builder Barzillai Sage. The new church was built of brownstone, which was donated by the Portland quarries. Lots in the cemetery behind the church were given for free with a $20 donation to the church, which added to the building fund. The tower and spire were completed in 1864, the same year a church Rectory was built to the east of the church. Next to St. John’s Church is St. John’s Parochial School, built in 1887 and blessed in 1888. The building once had a belfry, which was replaced around 1900 with the current raised gable and cross. The church and the school are joined by an arch, which had earlier been attached on one side to the church and was then attached on the other side to the school.

Rocky Hill United Methodist Church (1896)

Methodists in Rocky Hill built their first church in 1859. When that church burned to the ground on Valentine’s Day 1895, the ladies of the sewing society only had time to save an 1814 Bible and a pair of altar chairs from the building. A new church was opened less than a year after the fire. Now called the Rocky Hill United Methodist Church, it is located at 626 Old Main Street, on the corner of Church Street. This Gothic Revival church has triangular window shapes instead of the pointed arches that are more typical of the style.

St. Rose of Lima Church, Meriden (1859)

Meriden’s first Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated in 1843 or 1844 for the community’s growing Irish community. St. Rose of Lima became a parish in 1851. A new parish church, built on Center Street, was dedicated on July 31, 1859. The church‘s front facade once had a single steeple. It was later removed and replaced by the current facade, which has two matching towers. The church was formally consecrated in 1926. Since 1998, the parish has been staffed by by Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate Conception Province of St. Francis of Assisi.

Christ Church, New Haven (1898)

Christ Church in New Haven is an Episcopal Church founded in 1854 as a mission of Trinity Church. While Trinity Church is located in the center of town on New Haven Green, the first Christ Church was erected on the edge of town, in an area called Poverty Square near the almshouse and the town farm. Christ Church became a parish in 1856 and today continues the Anglo-Catholic worship and dedication to the city’s poor and dispossessed that have been hallmarks of the parish since its founding. The parish’s current Gothic church, at 84 Broadway, was built in 1898. It was designed by Henry Vaughan and the interior has intricate mahogany carvings by the Bavarian-born sculptor Johannes Kirchmayer. The church‘s stone tower is modeled on that of Magdalen College, Oxford. (more…)

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bridgeport (1875)

Founded in 1738 in the village of Stratfield, St. John’s Episcopal Church moved to the Borough of Bridgeport when the latter was incorporated in 1801. A wooden church was built at the corner of State and Broad Streets, followed by a larger stone church, at Broad and Cannon Streets, built in 1838. The current church, at the corner of Park and Fairfield Avenues, was constructed in 1873-1875, with a chapel wing on the north side added in 1886-1888. The church was designed by James Renwick, Jr., the architect of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The church’s tower was completed 1893, when the building, by then free of debt, was formally dedicated. The interior has been remodeled at different times over the years. (more…)