North Branford Congregational Church (1909)

The Second Ecclesiastical Society of Branford, also called the North Society, was established in 1724. Work soon began on a meeting house, after a debate that considered three possible sites for the building. It was eventually decided to erect the edifice “on the knoll on the west side of the river, at the place near Samuel Harrison’s.” Work began in 1726 and it was finished in 1732 with the completion of the gallery. As related by Rev. Elijah C. Baldwin in his “Annals of North Branford,” as quoted in Vol. II of S. L. Rockey’s History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892):

That meeting house had its location very near the present newer structure at the center. It stood and was used until after the present meeting house was finished. It is remembered by some persons now living. Its windows were small and diamond-shaped and numerous. It had doors on the east, west and south sides. The pulpit was high and shut-in galleries went around three sides, and they were quite high. The floor of the house was a step below the sills as you entered. Box pews for families covered the floor. Above the pulpit was hung a square, roof-like structure for a sounding board. In later years the bats had nests in this and occupied them with impunity, because of many years accumulation of dust and filth, that seemed out of the reach of all cleaning efforts that were made in those days. It was no uncommon thing for a bat to get loose during a service and go scooting through the house, to the manifest discomfort of many in the congregation.

The Second Society and Third (Northford) Society of Branford incorporated as the new town of North Branford in 1831. The first town election was held in the basement of the just completed Second Society’s second meeting house. As described in Rockey’s book:

The new meeting house was begun May 26th, 1830, six feet north of the old house, and was dedicated in April, 1831. In the winter of 1870-1, a pulpit recess was added and the house was thoroughly renovated. It has since been kept in good repair. The church property was further improved in the fall of 1886, when a neat frame Gothic chapel and parish house was built, near the main edifice. Its cost was about $2,000, which was largely the gift of Mrs. George Rose and Mrs. Lucretia Plant, assisted by others of the parish. This house was dedicated January 16th, 1887.

On February 1, 1908, the church burned down in a fire, although the 1887 Chapel was saved, thanks to a bucket brigade from the nearby river. A new North Branford Congregational Church edifice was built on the same site and has been in use since Easter, 1909. A parish house, containing the church school and fellowship hall, was erected in 1960, connecting the 1909 Sanctuary to the 1887 Chapel.

St. James Episcopal Church, Winsted (1926)

As related in Annals and Family Records of Winchester, Conn. (1873), by John Boyd:

The first stated worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Winsted was begun in 1847, by Rev. H. Frisbie, and some funds were then raised for a church edifice. During the following year arrangements were made for building a church and a location was agreed on. The present Episcopal Church was soon after contracted for and was completed in October, 1848; and on the 27th day of that month the parish of St. James was legally organized [. . . .]

The location of the church, influenced by the liberal subscriptions of individuals in its immediate vicinity, has been deemed ill-judged, and is supposed to have essentially retarded its growth. Endeavors have been made to obtain its removal to a more central point, intermediate between the east and west sections, but as yet without success.

The current St. James Episcopal Church, at 160 Main Street, was built in 1926.

St. James Episcopal Church, Danbury (1867)

The Episcopal Church in Danbury was organized in 1762 and was known as the First Episcopal Church. The original church building was erected in 1763 on South Street, near where the South Street School stands today. It was replaced in 1802 by a second church at the same location. It was officially named St. James’ Church in 1810. According to James M. Bailey’s History of Danbury, compiled with additions by Susan Benedict Hill in 1896:

The second [church building in Danbury] was the Episcopal St. James, which was built in 1763 on South Street. The graveyard on that street was the churchyard of this structure. The building was moved to the west corner of Main and South streets, where it was modernized and converted into a tenement, and is thus occupied to-day.

A new church was erected in 1844 at a new location on West Street. As the congregation grew, a larger church was again required. It was built in 1867 and incorporated parts of the previous church on the same site, 25 West Street. As related in the History of Danbury: “In 1867 the present chapel, the chancel, and first bay of the nave of the new stone church was erected, and in 1872 the nave and tower were completed all save the stone spire.” The Gregory House, next door, became the rectory and was remodeled as a parish house in the early twentieth century, when a new parish house was erected on Terrace Place. In addition to an organ, the church has the 25-bell Ella S. Bulkley Memorial Carillon in its bell tower. It is the oldest carillon in Connecticut and the first carillon made in America (cast in 1928). (more…)

Bethel United Methodist Church (1861)

The formation of the Methodist Church in Bethel grew out of a religious revival in the 1830s. With churches in Danbury being too crowded, in 1837 Methodists in Bethel began meeting in a private home. In 1847-1848, the congregation erected their own hall on a site where a Masonic Hall would later be built. Work on the current Bethel United Methodist Church, located at 141 Greenwood Avenue, began in 1860 and the building was dedicated in August, 1861. It is a stylistically eclectic edifice that features a Greek Revival cornice and pilasters, Italianate round-arched windows, and a Gothic Revival tower. The church had to be restored after a fire in 1884. The steeple was also rebuilt after a lightning strike in 1971.

Winchester Center Congregational Church (1842)

The First Ecclesiastical Society of Winchester was established on May 4, 1768 and the first meeting house was erected the following year. On October 11, 1785, Dr. Josiah Everitt deeded land for a new meeting house and a green. After a dispute between residents of the center and northwest sections of the town over where to erect the new meeting house, it was eventually built on the Winchester Center Green in 1786. In 1840 the Society decided to erect a new meeting house, which was dedicated June of 1842. The First Ecclesiastical Society of Winchester was consolidated to form the Winchester Center Congregational Church on October 9, 1954. Two years later, the church was moved 40 feet to a new foundation. A Pastor’s Study was added in 1962. To celebrate the building’s 150th anniversary, the church was rededicated on June 28, 1992.

St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church (1897)

St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church is located at 68 Main Street in East Berlin. It was built in 1897, at a time when East Berlin was experiencing a boom during the heyday of the nearby Berlin Iron Bridge Company. The church was built on land purchased from the East Berlin Building Company. This was a real estate development which rented housing to workers at the Iron Bridge Company, whose principals owned the majority of its stock (60% in 1903). The addition, with a shorter gable roof, to the north of the original section of the church (on the right in the image above), was built in the twentieth century. (more…)

St. Joseph Church, Danbury (1905)

The first Catholic services in Danbury took place in 1845. Saint Peter’s Catholic Church was eventually built on Main Street in the 1870s. In the History of the Diocese of Hartford, published in 1900, Rev. James H. O’Donnell wrote

We have seen that at the time of the first Mass the number of Catholics in Danbury did not exceed 70. The present Catholic population is 6,000 souls, divided into 5,000 Irish and their descendants, and 1,000 of mixed nationalities, Germans, Italians, Hungarians, French, Poles and Slavs.

The Catholic population had grown to an extent that a second Catholic Church was needed. A new parish was established in 1905, followed by the erection of Saint Joseph Church, located at 8 Robinson Avenue, facing Main Street. The Romanesque Revival-style church was designed by Dwyer and McMahon of Hartford.

The parish’s first pastor was Rev. John D. Kennedy, who was also chaplain of the Emmett Club, named after the Irish nationalist Robert Emmett, who led an abortive rebellion against British rule and was executed in 1803. The Emmett Club was the local chapter of Clan na Gael, an Irish republican organization that supported the island’s independence from Britain.

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