Salem Evangelical Covenant Church (1889)

Former Salem Covenant Congregational Church, Washington CT

Swedish immigrants in the town of Washington began work on a church adjacent to the bridge over the Shepaug River in the Washington Depot section of town in 1888 and it was dedicated on the Sunday before Christmas 1889. Originally known as the Swedish branch of the Congregational Church in Washington, the congregation split off on its own in 1892 to become the Salem Evangelical Covenant Church. That same year, other Swedish immigrants erected Trinity Lutheran Church just across the street. The Salem Covenant Church congregation relocated to a new church at 96 Baldwin Hill Road in 1977 and the old church building is now a private home.

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Samuel Nettleton House (1814)

Daniel Nettleton (1766-1829) and his wife Eunice Baldwin Nettleton came from Milford in about 1789 and settled in the town of Washington in an area that came to be called Nettleton Hollow. Across from the original Nettleton homestead, their son Samuel (1791-1852) built the house at 230 Nettleton Hollow Road in in 1814. He moved into the new house while his parents and his brother, Lyman Nettleton, remained in the old homestead, which stood until it was taken down in 1867 by Samuel’s nephew, Treat Nettleton, who moved into an octagon house built for him nearby. The Samuel Nettleton House remained in the family for well over a century and a half.

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Winchester Center Old Academy (1841)

Winchester Center Old Academy

The building known as the Winchester Center Old Academy is thought to have been built in the eighteenth century, although town accessor’s records give it a construction date (at least in its current form) of 1841 (it certainly has a Greek Revival appearance today appropriate to that period). It was partly built on land provided by Rev. Frederick Marsh, who lived nearby in the Priest Marsh House. It was later acquired by the Winchester Center Ecclesiastical Society and used for winter services, which is why it is also known as the Chapel. The building was renovated in 1910 and in 1971 became the home of the Winchester Center Historical Association.

Daniel Griswold House (1809)

Daniel Griswold House in Ivoryton, Connecticut

Just south of the Mill Pond, at 25 Main Street in the Ivoryton section of Essex, is a house built in 1809 by Daniel Griswold (1780-1870). In 1801 he had married Fanny Babcock (1779-1859). After her death in 1859, Daniel, who was then 79 years old, married Fanny Spencer. Daniel’s son William inherited the house. He would supply land for the new business enterprise of Comstock & Griswold, started in 1834 by his brother Edwin Griswold and Samuel M. Comstock, that would soon start producing ivory combs, launching the ivory industry in Ivoryton.

Jesse Barber House (1800)

The house at 259 Cherry Brook Road in Canton was built sometime before 1800 (an chestnut beam in the attic is inscribed with the date 1789). It was the home of Jesse Barber, a cobbler who had a shop north of his house and also a tannery. He would fix the shoes of the children who walked by his home on their way to school. For many years the house’s residents got their water from a spring on the hill to the east which traveled through a system of split and grooved logs laid end-to-end. This was later replaced by a lead pipe that had to be kept unfrozen in the winter to prevent clogging. New owners, Dennis and Wanda Mahoney, replaced this system with an artesian well in 1953. They also extensively restored the house and totally rebuilt the rear ell. An earlier owner, Ambrose Norman, had kept riding horses, but gave up the house to a grain merchant from Granby to satisfy an unpaid feed bill.

Christ Church, Pomfret (1882)

Christ Church in Pomfret, consecrated in 1882, was designed in a rural Victorian Gothic style by architect Howard Hoppin. It was constructed through a memorial gift of the Vinton family in honor of the Rev. Dr. Alexander H. Vinton and his wife, Eleanor Stockbridge Thompson Vinton. Their friend, Rev. Phillips Brooks of Boston, who wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” preached at the laying of the church’s cornerstone. The building is architecturally distinctive, with an interesting use of rubble stone and brick and an exaggerated roof line. It replaced an earlier church building, built the 1820s, that once stood to the north of the church’s current location. The church has six Tiffany stained glass windows.