The Ansonia National Guard Armory, at the corner of State and North Cliff Streets, was built between 1919 and 1921. Designed by Major Morris B. Payne, it contained barracks, officers’ quarters, a 75 X 150 foot drill hall and a rifle range. In 2003, the Armory was closed by the state and given to the City of Ansonia. It is now used for various events.
The Savings Bank of Ansonia was chartered in 1862 and initially shared a building with the Ansonia National Bank. A new building was constructed at 117 Main Street in 1900. The Neoclassical structure, which displays the dates 1862 and 1900, has been restored by Beacon Preservation, Inc. and now houses offices and Obsidium Antiques.
The building witnessed a dramatic scene on the night of September 16, 1915. The bank’s Treasurer, former Ansonia mayor, Franklin Burton, had been arrested for embezzling $38,000 and the bank’s affairs had been taken over by the State Bank Commissioner. A crowd of 5,000 people, fearing for their deposits, gathered and threatened to break in the doors of the closed bank. Threats were made of lynching Burton, who was still inside the building. The entire police force was called out but were unable to quell the developing riot. Firemen were ordered to turn their hoses on the mob, but this was prevented because hundreds of people seized the hose and took it away from them. Officials feared for Burton’s safety and he was taken from the building through a back window. Police clubs and fists were used freely and after two hours the police regained control and the crowed melted away. The next day, disorder was avoided and depositors were admitted to the bank one-by-one, where they were paid in full by William A. Nelson, one of the bank’s directors. According to the Bank Commissioner’s Report for 1915, “Rumors of trouble at the bank started a run which would have been quite serious but for the energy of Mr. William A. Nelson,” to whom great credit was due for “acting so promptly and effectively thus putting the affairs of this institution in its present good condition.”
Ansonia‘s First Congregational Church was founded in 1850 and a wood church was built in 1852. This burned in 1865, when a group of women were cleaning the church and a fire started in the flue of the furnace. It was replaced by the current Gothic church building on South Cliff Street, built of stone quarried in Seymour. Anson G. Phelps, who founded Ansonia, donated the land and funds to build the church, which has stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Ansonia became a separate town from Derby in 1889 and was incorporated as a city in 1893. The city’s earlier borough court building on Water Street was superseded by a new City Hall on Main Street in 1905, which originally housed the police headquarters and city court as well. There are two monuments in front of City Hall: one honors Ansonia’s war veterans and the other the members of the Ansonia Volunteer Fire Department.
We begin June with libraries, as we declare this week to be Library Week at Historic Buildings of Connecticut! Our first library is the Ansonia Library, designed by the architect George Keller, who was responsible for many other interesting buildings in the state. Caroline Phelps Stokes, granddaughter of Anson Greene Phelps, who founded Ansonia, donated the library, buying the land for it on the corner of South Cliff Street and Cottage Avenue. She traveled from New York to supervise the construction of the building, which utilized Longmeadow freestone with a foundation of granite from Ansonia. In a gable, above the library’s entryway, is a relief sculpture of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and knowledge. The Ansonia Library was completed in 1892, but did not open its doors until 1896, because the town government was initially reluctant to provide the $1,500 per year required for the library’s operating expenses.
The congregation of Three Saints Russian Orthodox Church in Ansonia was officially formed in 1895. Their first church building was constructed at Howard Avenue and Crescent Street in 1899-1900. After the interior of the church was gutted by a fire in 1954, a new church was constructed on Howard Avenue. Completed in 1955, the church was dedicated in 1956. The bells from the earlier church, a gift from Tsar Nicholas II, were installed in the new church.
John Humphreys was a brother of General David Humphreys. Their father, Rev. Daniel Humphreys, built John a home on Elm Street in what is now Ansonia. The house was acquired by James Stokes, who lived next door, around 1854. Stokes piped water to his own home and barn from a spring on the Humphreys property. The house is not to be confused with the John Humphreys House in Swampscott, MA.
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