Thomas Settle Building (1887)

246 Main Street in Danbury

The building at 248 Main Street in Danbury was erected in 1887 as the home of the Danbury National Bank. It was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by Bridgeport architect Warren Briggs. It served the bank until 1924. In 1940 the building became the home of the Settle Agency, an insurance Agency run by Thomas Settle. The building now bears his name. A fire in 1873 destroyed the building’s original third-story steep gables and roof. The third floor was then rebuilt. As related in The Bankers Magazine (Vol. XLIII, No. 5, November 1888):

The Danbury National Bank has taken possession of its new building which is spacious, well arranged, well lighted, and is a model of its kind. The front is occupied by the president and cashier, each having separate offices. The remainder is divided into compartments for tellers and clerks Each of these are divided by open metal work giving one a view of the entire room from any point. Outside is an abundance of room for patrons of the bank and desks are conveniently arranged for their use. The furniture of this room is of cherry. The ceiling is sixteen feet high. This institution has an excellent history. In 1824 the Fairfield County Bank, located at Norwalk, was chartered by the legislature, with the provision that it should have a branch at Danbury At the meeting of the directors held August 24, 1824, Zalmon Wildman (the father of Frederick S Wildman, president of the Savings Bank of Danbury) was elected president of said branch bank, and David Foot was appointed a committee to contract with Dr Comstock for the use of a room in his house, and to fit it up for the use of the bank. On the 20th of September, 1824, Curtis Clark was elected cashier of the branch bank, and the bank commenced business. On the 29th day of August, 1825, it was “voted that in the opinion of this board it is expedient to build a banking house for the accommodation of the institution as soon as may be convenient,” and a building was erected and occupied for a period of twenty nine years as the Fairfield County Branch Bank, until July 1844, when the Danbury Bank was chartered, and took the place of the Fairfield County Branch Bank. with same board of president and directors. The Danbury Bank occupied that building until April 14th, 1855. Then another building was projected but for various reasons was not built until the present time.

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Darragan Building and Larue Building (1891)

The adjacent buildings at 238 and 240-242 Main Street in Danbury were built simultaneously in 1891-1892. The Darragan Building (on the left in the image above) was designed by local architect Joel Foster in the Romanesque Revival style with terra cotta tile decoration around the arched windows. In 1913 the building was acquired by the Danbury and Bethel Gas and Electric Light Company and sold in 1965. It currently has businesses on the ground floor and apartments above. The Larue Building next door, at 240-242 Main Street, was designed by Leoni W. Robinson of New Haven in a similar style with brownstone window ornamentation.

Former Mill Office in South Glastonbury (1720)

Former Mill Office, now a house.

The building at 9 Tryon Street in South Glastonbury may have been built as early as 1720. Around that time Thomas Hollister and Thomas Welles started a saw mill on the east side of nearby Roaring Brook. The mill was linked to the shipbuilding industry in the area at the time. By the mid-eighteenth century this early operation had developed into what was known as the “Great Grist mill at Nayaug.” The house at 9 Tryon Street may have been the bake house associated with that mill that is mentioned in a 1783 deed. According to one source, the Welles-Hollister grist mill and bake oven on Roaring Brook at Nayaug was completely destroyed in the great flood of 1869 and the mill had to be rebuilt on the northwest side of the bridge over Roaring Brook at the foot of High Street. Later, in the early twentieth century, there was a feldspar mill on the east side of the brook and the building at 9 Tryon Street may have served as the mill office of owner Louis W. Howe and then as housing for a spar mill worker’s family. Howe sold the house c. 1928 to Mrs. Aaron Kinne, who had the interior remodeled c. 1940 to designs by restoration architect Norris F. Prentice. It was remodeled a second time in 2002.

H.R. & W. Bringhurst Drugstore and Doctor’s Office (1953)

Bringhurst Drugstore
Bringhurst Drugstore

Mystic Seaport recreates a drugstore of the period 1870-1885 in a building the museum erected in 1953. A small recreated doctor’s office adjoins the drugstore building. The store is named for the Binghurst family of pharmacists, which began with Joseph Bringhurst (1767-1834), who operated a drugstore in Wilmington, Delaware. The Bringhurst collection was given to Mystic Seaport by Smith, Kline & French Laboratories, which had acquired it after the store closed. The building also contains the Abram P. Karsh collection of pharmaceutical items from the Philadelphia area.

Gilbert Block (1907)

Gilbert Block, aka Main Block in Mystic

The large commercial building at 1-17 West Main Street in Mystic, which has contained numerous businesses over the years, was erected in 1907 by the brothers Mark and Osgood Gilbert. It housed the offices of the Gilbert Transportation Company, the brothers’ shipyard where they built and repaired schooners. (There is a photo that shows the building they previously occupied on the site before they built the current structure). The company went bankrupt in 1909. There was a fire in 1915 that gutted the building. It was started because of an over-heated flue in Green’s Bakery and spread to a theater that showed silent films. The building remained vacant until 1924, when the structure was rebuilt and renamed the Main Block. The building continues to be used for retail stores and apartments. There is a video about the building:

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12 Chestnut Street, Bethel (1850)

Former Walker Ferry Shoe Store in Bethel

The building at 12 Chestnut Street in Bethel was once a commercial structure, with storefronts on the first floor and a two-level residence above. Walker Ferry (1822-1906), a shoemaker, had started business on the site in 1845. In about 1850, he tore down the earlier building and replaced it with the current one, which he occupied for many decades. At first he manufactured shoes on the first floor, employing a number of men, but later ceased shoemaking and switched to operating a retail shoe store, retiring shortly before his death in 1906. A c. 1890 image shows the shoe store on the right and McDowell’s Meat Market on the left.