Churches - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Dwight Chapel (1842)

Originally constructed on Yale’s Old Campus in 1842-46 to serve as a library, Dwight Hall and Chapel was converted in 1931 to contain the Dwight Memorial Chapel, honoring Timothy Dwight. An early example of the Gothic Revival style, it was Yale’s first Gothic building and is currently Yale’s second oldest surviving building. It was designed by Henry Austin and in 1931, after the library had moved to a new building, its interior was remodeled by Charles Z. Klauder. The building is home to the organization known as Dwight Hall (formerly the Yale University Christian Association), which will be moving to a different building in 2010.

In front of the Chapel is a statue of former Yale President Theodore Dwight Woolsey.

Trinity Episcopal Church, New Haven (1814)

Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green, located just southwest of Center Church, is the third church comprising New Haven Green‘s carefully laid out plan of the Federal Period. At the time of its construction (1813-1814), Trinity Church, designed by Ithiel Town, was the most unusual of the three, as it was one of the very first three Gothic-style buildings in the United States. Town’s design has been significantly altered over the years, with the original wooden upper section of the tower being replaced by the current stone structure (and a pyramid, removed in 1930). Other changes include the addition of a chancel in 1884, by Henry Congdon. Town also designed Hartford’s first Gothic Episcopal church, which is now Chist Church Cathedral.

United Church on the Green (1815)

United Church on the Green, located on New Haven Green just northeast of First Church, was built 1812-1815. The Congregation dates back to the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century. In 1796, two congregations united: the White Haven church (formed in 1742) and the Fair Haven church (formed 1769). Their church building, originally known as North Church, was designed by Ebenezer Johnson, a member of the church committee, who made reference to the design of All Saints Church in Southampton, England (designed by C. L. Stieglitz; built 1792-5; destroyed 1940) as featured in a French architectural book. North Church was built by the noted Connecticut architect, David Hoadley. In 1849, the interior was totally remodeled by Sidney Mason Stone. In 1884, North Church joined with Third Church to form United Church. Both congregations had been involved with abolitionism: Third Church’s Simeon Jocelyn was a founding member of the Amistad Committee and North Church’s Roger Sherman Baldwin was a lawyer who defended the Amistad African’s rights.

First Congregational Church, New Haven (1814)

Now that April Fools Day is over, the rest of April will be New Haven Month at Historic Buildings of CT. First up is New Haven’s First Congregational Church, also called Center Church on-the-Green, due to its central location, between two other churches, on New Haven Green. The city’s congregation goes back to the founding of the New Haven colony in 1838. The new town was carefully planned out by the settlers in what is known as the “Nine Square Plan,” with New Haven Green at the center. Four successive Meeting Houses were constructed on the Green: the first in 1640, the second in 1669 and the third in 1757. The fourth and current church was built, in the Federal style, between 1812-1814. Designed by Asher Benjamin, who sent the plans from Boston, the church was built by the then unknown Ithiel Town, who may have added some of his own elements to the design. The building was one of many in America modeled on St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The interior was remodeled by Henry Austin in 1842. Center Church is also famous for having been partly constructed over the town’s old Colonial burying ground, remains of which can be found in the church’s Crypt.

First Congregational Church of South Windsor (1846)

In 1691, the settlement of East Windsor petitioned the Connecticut General Court for the privilege of having its own church and minister, seperate from Windsor. In 1694, the first meeting house was constructed (to be replaced in 1714). The first minister, ordained in 1698, was Timothy Edwards, father of the renowned preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards, who was born in the East Windsor Hill neighborhood. East Windsor became incorporated as a seperate town in 1768 and in 1845, South Windsor separated from East Windsor. The area where the Edwards had lived was part of the new town. The current Timothy Edwards Church (First Congregational Church of South Windsor) is on Main Street and was built in 1846.

St. Joseph Church, Bristol (1925)

The first St. Joseph Church, Bristol’s first Catholic church, was built in 1855. This original wood building, enlarged in 1879, was eventually replaced by the current granite church, dedicated in 1925. Designed by Joseph A. Jackson in the English Tudor Gothic style (or Perpendicular Gothic), the church is on Queen Street, facing Federal Hill Green.

First Church in Windsor (1794)

The history of Windsor’s Congregational Church goes back to 1630, when its founding members arrived in Massachusetts with John Winthrop‘s fleet. In 1635, they left Dorchester, Mass and settled in Windsor. The town and congregation soon grew under the leadership of their minister, John Warham, and their teacher of church doctrine, Ephraim Huit. The church’s first building was located in the center of Palisado Green. The current First Church in Windsor, on Palisado Avenue, was built in 1794, but was significantly altered in 1844 with the replacement of the original steeple and the addition of a columned portico, both in the Greek Revival style.