Last Sunday I featured St. Andrew’s Church in Kent, erected in 1826. Not far away, in the village of Marble Dale in the town of Washington, is another St. Andrew’s Church built about four years earlier, between 1821 and 1822. Both of these Episcopal churches (as well as ones in Caanan and Salisbury) were built at a time when these parishes had Reverend George B. Andrews as their pastor. The parish in Marble Dale was originally established in 1764 in New Preston. Harassed during the American Revolution because they were predominantly loyalist, the members of the congregation temporarily abandoned their original building, but after the war were formally organized as the New Preston Episcopal Society in 1784. After plans to move their church building to be near the Congregational Church fell through, they rented and then purchased a Quaker meeting house, which was used for services until the current church was built. The building was enlarged in 1855 to plans by the Rev. Nathaniel Sheldon Wheaton (1792-1862), who also underwrote for the project. Rev. Wheaton later served (1831-1837) as second president of Trinity College in Hartford.
Now comprising part of the “Main House” on the campus of the Rectory School in Pomfret is a house erected circa 1795 for Thomas Grosvenor (1744-1825), a lawyer who served in the Revolutionary War. Wounded in his right hand at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Grosvenor ended the was as a Lieutenant Colonel. The house was remodeled and greatly enlarged in about 1885 by Thomas Skelton Harrison, a Philadelphia industrialist. In 1925, Rev. Frank H. Bigelow and his wife, founders of the Rectory School in 1920, acquired the Harrison estate to become the school’s campus. In the ensuing years they erected a complex of wood-framed colonial revival buildings on the estate, which has been the school’s campus ever since.
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 inThe 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.
It looks like I posted this building too late. It was demolished a few years ago!A new building was completed on the site in 2022.
Later home to a business and much altered, the building at 595 Greenhaven Road in Pawcatuck was once a restaurant called the Greenhaven Inn. I’m not sure when the house was built (if it’s Colonial or Colonial-Revival). The real estate websites give a date of 1901 but that may not be very precise.
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