Libraries - 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.

New Haven Free Public Library (1908)

The New Haven Free Public Library goes back to its original opening in 1887 in leased space in a building on Chapel Street. Having outgrown this location by the first few years of the twentieth century, a permanent building was constructed at the corner of Elm and Temple Streets. Built between 1908 and 1911, the building was designed by the prominent architect Cass Gilbert of New York, who had won the design competition. He created a Colonial Revival structure, set back from the street, that would harmonize with the early nineteenth century architecture nearby, including that of United Church on the Green.

The Lewis Walpole Library (1784)

Maj. Solomon Cowles of Farmington, a wealthy merchant and Revolutionary War General, built a Georgian-style house on Main Street in 1784, recognizable today for its long columned porch. The home remained in the Cowles family until it was purchased by Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis in 1926. Lewis was a 1918 Yale graduate, collector, author, and the editor of The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence. He remodeled the house in 1928 to house the Walpole Collection he had gathered, consisting of rare books and manuscripts, relating to Horace Walpole and his times, and “the largest and finest collection of eighteenth-century British graphic art outside the British Museum.” Lewis and his wife, Annie Burr Auchincloss Lewis (sister of Hugh Auchincloss of Newport’s Hammersmith Farm), lived in a house next door. Lewis died in 1979 and the library, with its collection and grounds, was given to Yale University and is now a department of the university’s library. Known as the Lewis Walpole Library, the site includes the Cowles House, the adjacent Root House (where visiting scholars can stay) and the Day-Lewis Museum of Indian Artifacts. The property recently underwent a major renovation project.

For those interested in Horace Walpole, nineteenth century editions of his works can be found through Google Books, including his well-known Castle of Otranto, as well as collections of his letters and memoirs. He also wrote Anecdotes of Painting in England and A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England.

Wood Memorial Library (1928)

Donated by William Wood, of South Windsor, in honor of his parents, Dr. William Wood (a distinguished ornithologist) and Mary Ellsworth Wood, the Wood Memorial Library, on Main Street, served as the one of town’s two libraries from its dedication, in 1928, into the 1970s, when a new library building was constructed on Sullivan Avenue. In 1971, the non-profit Friends of Wood Memorial Library was founded to oversee its continued operation, through private funds, as a library, museum and historical archive. The library, built between 1926 and 1928, was designed by the Hartford architect William Marchant in the Colonial Revival style, with features drawn from the Federal period.

South Glastonbury Public Library (1828)

The building on High Street in Glastonbury, which is currently the home of the South Glastonbury Public Library, was originally built in 1828 as a Methodist Church. Constructed by Parley Bidwell, who also built Glastonbury’s first Town Hall, the church had separate entrances for men and women. In the 1860s, the building was used as an unofficial African-American church and anti-slavery rallies were held there. By 1910, the local cotton mills had closed and the Methodist congregation had greatly decreased. The building was sold and used only for summer services until 1927, when the South Glastonbury Library first opened. At that time, the building was owned by Mrs. Helen Walsh Thompson, who allowed it to be used as a library for a nominal fee until 1941, when she gave it to the South Glastonbury Library Association.

The Connecticut State Library and Supreme Court Building (1910)

Located on Capitol Avenue in Hartford, right across from the State Capitol building, Connecticut’s State Library and Supreme Court Building was constructed in 1908-1910. It was designed by the New York architect, Donn Barber, in a style influenced by the Italian Renaissance. The statues above the front entrance, installed in 1913, are figures of Justice, History, Art and Science, sculpted by Michel Louis Tonnetti. The building’s East Wing houses the State Library, while the West Wing houses the Supreme Court. Between the two wings is Memorial Hall, which is home to the Museum of Connecticut History. As with the neighboring State Capitol, visitors can take tours of the Supreme Court.

Berlin Free Library (1831)

At 834 Worthington Ridge in Berlin is a building erected around 1831 as the second Berlin, or Worthington, Academy Building. The first floor was used as the school, while the second served first as space for the Presbyterian Church, and later as a courthouse. With declining enrollments, the school closed in 1873 and the building served various purposes until in 1900 it was sold to the Brandegee family. In 1949, it was donated in honor of the family to the Berlin Free Library Association and still serves as a library today.