At 40 Main Street in Bethel is a building known as the Second Meeting House. It was built in 1842 and was indeed the second meeting house to be erected by the First Congregational Church of Bethel. The first meeting house, built in 1760, had burned down. In 1865, a strong wind blew down the second meeting house’s steeple, which fell through the roof of the building. As related in James Montgomery Bailey’s History of Danbury (1896): “In the spring of 1865, during a gale, the house was injured by the falling of the spire, and having been repaired, was sold to the town and moved ten rods west of its former site.” In 1866, the church erected its third and current meeting house, located at 46 Main Street, where the first meeting house had once stood. After being sold to the town, the Second Meeting House served as Town Hall until 1939. Today, the building is the headquarters of the Bethel Historical Society, which rents out the hall. It is also the meeting place of Bethel VFW Post 935.
The First Congregational Church of Bethel was first organized in 1759. Captain Ebenezer Hickok gave the land for the first meeting house (built in 1760) and burial ground. The original building, located at the intersection of Main, Maple, and Chestnut Streets, burned down in 1842, and a new building (the Second Meeting House) was constructed. In 1865, during a severe thunderstorm and gale force wind, the steeple fell and broke through the building’s roof. The church chose to sell the building (it’s now the home of the Bethel Historical Society) to the town and erect a new meeting house, which still stands today, on the site of the original meeting house, at 46 Main Street.
The Rev. M. P. Lawlor was the celebrant of the first Mass said in Bethel. The historic event took place on January 8, 1882, in the Town Hall, in the presence of about 400 persons. In the spring of the same year the congregation secured Fisher’s Hall, in which Mass was said until the church was completed. Before this year the Catholics of Bethel attended Mass at St. Peter’s church, Danbury. [p. 264]
In 1881, it was determined to separate the Catholics of Bethel and Grassy Plain district from the mother church at Danbury. Accordingly, a building committee, comprising Thomas Doran, Michael Brauneis and Owen Murray, was appointed, and the work of securing funds for the erection of a new church was auspiciously and successfully carried on. Sufficient money having been collected to guarantee beginning the work, the construction of the church was entered upon with vigor and enthusiasm. The corner-stone was laid on Sunday, September 17, 1882, by Bishop McMahon. [p.265]
In April, 1883, Bethel was separated from the jurisdiction of Danbury and organized into a separate parish, with the Rev. M. Byrne as the first pastor. Father Byrne died after a successful, though brief, pastorate. The main altar of St. Mary’s church was donated by his mother as a memorial of her son. [p. 264]
The ceremony of dedication took place on Sunday, September 16, 1883, Father Byrne, being pastor. Bishop McMahon officiated. [. . .] The church is a brick edifice, Gothic in style with the tower on the side. It is 49 x 88 feet. The basement wall is granite, and the roof imitation clerestory. All the windows are of beautiful stained glass and bear the names of the donors. The distance from the ground to the top of the cross is 138 feet. The seating capacity of the church is 475. [p.265]
The Rev. Patrick O’Connell succeeded Father Byrne in November, 1883. His period of service was fifteen years. Evidences of his sacerdotal zeal are everywhere visible. The works that signalized his administration were the purchase of the rectory and lot on which it stands, and a cemetery on the line of the Danbury and Norwalk railroad. He furnished the church with a pipe organ and a bell for the tower; erected three sets of granite steps for the entrances of the church; built an expensive property line wall, laid the concrete walks, and graded and beautified the grounds—works which bear testimony to his activity and to the generosity of the parishioners. [p. 264]
The Putnam House Hotel was built at 12 Depot Place in Bethel in the early 1860s by the Judd family. The Putnam House Restaurant web site says it was built 1852. The land on which the hotel was built was owned by Seth Seelye, whose house on Greenwood Avenue would later become the Bethel Public Library. Ownership of the hotel changed hands several times over the years. By 1922, it was owned by Oscar Gustavson, who sold the building in 1955 to George Shaker, a local realtor, who turned it into apartments. The building was later converted again, this time to serve as the first of six restaurants that have occupied the space since 1982: Dickson’s, La Plume, Papa Gallo’s, Mackenzie’s Old Ale House, Monetti’s and currently, since 1998, as The Putnam House Restaurant and Tap Room.
The formation of the Methodist Church in Bethel grew out of a religious revival in the 1830s. With churches in Danbury being too crowded, in 1837 Methodists in Bethel began meeting in a private home. In 1847-1848, the congregation erected their own hall on a site where a Masonic Hall would later be built. Work on the current Bethel United Methodist Church, located at 141 Greenwood Avenue, began in 1860 and the building was dedicated in August, 1861. It is a stylistically eclectic edifice that features a Greek Revival cornice and pilasters, Italianate round-arched windows, and a Gothic Revival tower. The church had to be restored after a fire in 1884. The steeple was also rebuilt after a lightning strike in 1971.
The one-room schoolhouse at 72 Plumtrees Road in Bethel was built in 1867 on land donated by Eliza Benedict (1820-1899). It served the Plumtrees District, one of the town’s five school districts at the time. The building was enlarged and a cupola and bell were added in 1881. The school was closed for renovations in 1957 and for the first time electricity and indoor plumbing were installed. The building reopened in 1962 as an elementary school and remained open until 1970. It was then used by the Visiting Nurse Association as a children’s health care clinic. A commission to preserve the school was formed in 2006. Today, the building is owned by the town of Bethel and the Plumtrees School Association has a historical easement to maintain it as an educational museum.
