Old Danbury Library (1878)

The former home of the Danbury Library, located at 256 Main Street, was built in 1876-1878 and served as the city’s library until the current  building was erected at 170 Main Street in 1970. Beginning in 1771, there had been several successive library organizations in Danbury, the last of which disbanded in the 1850s. As related in James Montgomery Bailey’s History of Danbury, Conn. (1896), the creation of a permanent library was

substantially the gift of one family, that of the late E. Moss White, [a successful farmer and merchant] of Danbury. The late William Augustus White, of Brooklyn, son of E. Moss White, by his last will and testament bequeathed the sum of $10,000, to be paid five years after his decease, for the establishment of a public library in his native borough of Danbury. The Legislature of Connecticut, at its session in 1869, passed an act incorporating the Danbury Library, which act was approved by the Governor, June 5th, 1869. On June 1st, 1870, Alexander M. White, of Brooklyn, brother of William Augustus White, and sole executor of his will, placed at the disposal of the trustees of the library the house on Main Street, in which he was born and in which his parents died, to be used for library purposes until a suitable building could be erected upon the premises.

The E. Moss White White Homestead, erected in 1790, housed the library until 1876. At that point, Alexander M. White (who was a partner in Danbury’s leading hatters’ fur processing firm)  donated the house and land to the library. With his brother, George Granville White, he provided the funds necessary to move the house to a rear lot and erect a brand new library building in its place. Designed by architect Lorenzo Wheeler, the Danbury Library opened in 1878. It became a free library in 1893. Initially, the downstairs rooms were rented for offices with the library on the second story. Later, the lower level was converted into the Children’s Room. In the 1930s, artist Charles Federer of Bethel, painted murals depicting fairy tales in the Children’s Room as a W.P.A. project. Today the former library building is the Danbury Music Center. In 1994, the Marian Anderson Recital Hall was dedicated on the second floor. (more…)

Fairchild Memorial Library (1925)

Before the Trumbull Library opened at 33 Quality Street on June 8, 1975, the town of Trumbull was served by three independent libraries: the Nichols Memorial (1923), Fairchild Memorial (1929), and Hawley Memorial (1937). These were merged under town administration in 1969. When plans were made to build that new library at a central location, two of the older libraries closed, but the Fairchild Memorial, now called the Fairchild-Nichols Memorial Library, remained as a branch of the new Trumbull Library System. Fairchild-Nichols began in 1922 as a lending library housed at the Old Firehouse. The library building at 1718 Huntington Turnpike was built in 1925 and the library opened in 1929.

North Haven Cultural Center (1938)

The North Haven Cultural Center, 27 Broadway in North Haven, was built in 1938 as the North Haven Memorial Library. In 1883, Silas L. Bradley of Auburn, NY, left a bequest to start a library in his home town of North Haven. The Bradley Library Association opened in 1884 in the home of Dr. Austin Lord, where it remained until it moved into the newly constructed Memorial Town Hall in 1887. The library’s name was changed to the North Haven Memorial Library in 1907 to recognize the importance of memorial bequests in establishing the library and to encourage future donations. In the 1920s and 1930s, enough funds and a gift of land allowed construction of a new library building. Dedicated in 1938, the library was designed by Robert Booth and constructed by the C. F. Wooding Company of Wallingford at a cost of $26,899.52. In the 1960s, the Memorial Library Association also came to administer the Martha Culver Library in North Haven on behalf of the town. In 1970, the Library Association offered its existing building and land to the town in exchange for constructing a new library building that would be run by the town. The new library was dedicated in 1972 and the old library building became the North Haven Cultural Center, which is now home to the North Haven Historical Society and the North Haven Art Guild.

Ivoryton Library (1889)

In the later nineteenth century, the section of the Town of Essex, west of the village of Centerbrook would develop into the village of Ivoryton, centered on the manufacturing of ivory products by Comstock, Cheney & Company. In 1871, a decade before the name Ivoryton came to be used for the area, local residents formed the Centerbrook Circulating Library (now the Ivoryton Library Association). The library received vital support from members of the Comstock and Cheney families who ran the local factory. For many years the Library’s books were located at the home of Samuel Cheney, but as early as 1874, money began to be raised for a dedicated library building. Archibald W. Comstock and his sister Harriet donated land for the library in 1888. The Ivoryton Library, located at 106 Main Street, was dedicated in November 1889. For many years the new library was run by Bessie and Laura Comstock, unmarried granddaughters of the ivory-cutting factory’s founder, Samuel M. Comstock. Except for one early twentieth-century addition, the library appears much as it did when it first opened and continues as a private non-profit institution. It is the oldest library in the Town of Essex, preceding the Essex Library Association (also a private institution) at 33 West Avenue in Essex village. While many Connecticut towns once had private libraries that later become town operated public libraries, the two library associations in Essex remain private institutions.

Hodge Memorial Library & Museum (1937)

The first public library in the town of Roxbury was established in October 1896. It was housed in the back rooms of the old Town Hall until Charles Watson Hodge, upon his death in 1936, bequeathed $15,000 to erect a building for a library and museum. Completed in 1937 by Clayton B. Squire, the stone building was named after Charles Hodge’s father, Albert Lafayette Hodge. A north wing addition was completed in 1967 through a donation by Everett Hurlburt. A new building, the Minor Memorial Library, was erected in the early 1990s to become the town’s public library, with the Hodge Memorial, at 4 North Street, continuing as a museum open to the public by appointment only.

Old Canton Public Library (1920)

The building at 26 Center Street in Collinsville was erected in 1920 as the Canton Public Library. The library had started in 1913 and was initially housed in the basement of the Collins Company office building. The 1920 building was a gift by Helen R. Collins in memory of her husband, Howard R. Collins, son of Samuel W. Collins, founder of the Collins Company. It was erected on land donated by the Canton Memorial Association in memory of the soldiers and sailors of Canton. The library moved out in 1999 and the building now houses the law offices of Burns & Lovejoy.