Linstead & Funck Blocks (1889)

At the corner of Main and Prospect Streets in Bristol is a four-story Romanesque Revival red brick commercial building called the Linstead Block (238 Main Street). It was built by William Linstead, an English immigrant who, according to Men of Progress: Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in and of the State of Connecticut (1898), “erected many of the large buildings in Bristol all of which compare favorably with the best work of their kind, and are a credit to the town and their builder.” Two storefronts on the Main Street side of the building have been altered, but those on the corner and on the Prospect Street side retain their original cast-iron columns. Trinity Episcopal Church was moved from Main Street around the corner to High Street to make way for the construction of the Linstead Block. The church burned down in 1945 and a new one was erected on Summer Street.

Attached to the Linstead Block and continuing along Prospect Street is the Funck Block (13 Prospect Street), also constructed in 1889. It was built for C. Funck & Son, a furniture company that also made coffins. The undertaking business was located further down Main Street until an addition made to the Funck Block allowed it to join the furniture store in 1930. While the earlier section of the building has cast-iron columns like the Linstead Block, the addition at the end has a Tudor Revival storefront. Ten years later the undertaking business (now Funk Funeral Home) moved to the George W. Mitchell House on Bellevue Avenue. The furniture part of the business was absorbed into the Bristol Furniture Store, which continued for some years on Prospect Street.

Buckland & Barton Store and Post Office (1871/1876)

The connected commercial structures at 73 Main Street in East Hampton, known as the Buckland Block, were begun in the 1870s and added to over the years. Leonard Willey, a local merchant, constructed the south store section in 1871 and mortgaged it to finance construction of the north section: a hall erected in 1876. The building was soon acquired by George Buckland and housed Buckland and Barton’s dry goods store, with the south building being used as a post office. Attached at the rear of the post office is an elevator tower, which gave easy access to the P.O. for D. A. Williams, whose patent medicine business was located in the rear annex. The hall was used for town meetings and once was the site of a murder trial. So many spectators attended that the floor began to give way and the trial had to be relocated.

Downs House (1750)

32 East Flat Hill Rd., South Britain

According to a guide to the South Britain Historic District, produced by the Town of Southbury, the house at 32 East Flat Hill Road, called the Downs House, was acquired as a residence by the minister of the South Britain Congregational Church in 1791. Does this relate it to the Moses Downs House at 639 South Britain Road? Further, the guide indicates that it was used in the 1870s for a school for girls and the lower level was once a tavern. The National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination for the South Britain Historic District dates the house to 1750 (based on assessor’s records) and indicates it was once a toll house.

Tower House (1875)

The unusual building at 926-940 Farmington Avenue in Kensington was built c. 1875 by the brothers, Augustine F. Wooding and Ralph A. Wooding. They started a business making dog collars, later expanding to harness trimmings and saddlery hardware. In the 1896, they built a dam and pond and were granted a contract to supply water to trains on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. The building’s tower was then erected to serve as a water tower. Known as the Tower House, in later years the building was used as apartments. (more…)

Waterbury Assembly of God (1900)

Waterbury Assembly of God is a church located at 101 Prospect Street in Naugatuck. The church was built c. 1900. I think it may have been built originally as a Baptist Church, as described in History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut, Vol. I (1918), by William J. Pape:

Among the citizens living in the Salem society soon after 1800 were a number of Baptists, who first worshipped in the church in Waterbury. In October, 1817, sixty persons living in Salem, Prospect and Bethany were set off from the Waterbury society to organize a new church in the localities indicated. Two meeting-houses were built, one on Fulling Mill Brook, and by December 22, 1819, the second was organized in the Straitsville locality.

It is the one on Fulling Mill Brook which later became the Naugatuck Baptist Church, with a fine church edifice on Prospect Street, in Union City.