Bristol

First Congregational Church, Bristol (1832)

In 1742, when Bristol (known as New Cambridge) was still a part of Farmington, its residents received the privilege, from the Connecticut General Court, to have their own congregational services during the winter months. A seperate ecclesiastical society was formed in 1744 and the congregation settled its first minister in 1747. Their first meeting house was soon completed on Federal Hill Green, which had been chosen as the center of the new community. A school was completed in 1754 and, later, a second meeting house to replace the first. The current First Congregational Church is the third building on the site, constructed in 1832 at the intersection of Maple Street and Prospect Place. It was designed by Benjamin Palmer in the Greek Revival style, although the steeple has a Gothic elements.

Old Bristol High School (1890)

Bristol’s High School building of 1890, at the intersection of Center and Summer Streets, was designed by Bristol-born architect Theodore Peck (who also designed such buildings in Bristol as a house for his brother, Miles Lewis Peck). The school displays the hallmarks of the Richardsonian Romanesque, including the use of stone (here added as trim on a brick building) and semicircular Romanesque arches. The style was named for the influential architect H.H. Richardson, who designed the Cheney Building in Hartford. The High School, which was expanded in 1912, was used as a school until 1922, when a larger building was needed. It has since served various purposes and was named the Messier Building. One notable change to the building since 1890 is a significant shortening of the original chimney. It is currently being renovated as the new home of the Bristol Historical Society.

Miles Lewis House (1801)

Miles Lewis built in 1801-1802 for his new wife, Isabinda Peck Lewis, on Maple Street in Bristol, is now the home of the American Clock and Watch Museum. Lewis was the son of Abel Lewis, who owned the Lewis Tavern. While Miles Lewis and his wife had no children, a niece of Isabinda came to live with them, and Peck descendants lived in the house until 1952. The next year it was bought by the Bristol Clock Museum. In 1956, a new wing was added to the museum, constructed with wood paneling saved from the 1728 house of Ebenezer Barnes.

Miles Lewis Peck House (1881)

Miles Lewis Peck was the president of the Bristol Savings Bank. His 1881 house, on Summer Street in Bristol, was designed by his brother, the Waterbury architect Theodore Peck. The house was built in the Queen Anne style, with decorated barge boards in the Gothic Revival mode.

Elbridge S. Wightman House (1890)

Elbridge S. Wightman of Bristol owned a distillery and built a Queen Anne-style house on Summer Street around 1890. The Hall House, next door, is also a Queen Anne built around the same time, but is less ornate in its ornamentation than the Wightman House.

Albert F. Rockwell House (1876)

Clifford S. Brown was the first owner of an 1876 Queen Anne-style house on Summer Street in Bristol, which was designed by Joel T. Case. Case’s houses are known for having unusual features, with this example having a square corner tower, uncommon for the Queen Anne style. The house was later sold to the inventor Alfred F. Rockwell, who lived there with his wife Nettie. He would later build a large mansion in Bristol, called Brightwood, which has since been destroyed.

Born in Woodhull, New York, Albert Fenimore Rockwell worked at various trades in different places, including several years in Florida in the fruit and hardware businesses. Leaving Florida because of yellow fever, he came to Bristol in 1888 and, in the next year, founded the New Departure Manufacturing Company with his brother Edward. Originally set up to produce a new doorbell based on clockworks, Rockwell’s company would become very successful making bicycle lamps and coaster brakes, which Rockwell patented with Harry P. Townsend. Later, New Departure became the world’s largest producer of ball bearings. Rockwell also produced various automobiles between 1908 and 1911, including the Rockwell taxicab and various Houpt-Rockwell models. In 1913, he was ousted from New Departure, which later became part of General Motors, but went on to purchase the Marlin Firearms Company, manufacturing Marlin-Rockwell machine guns and automatic rifles during the First World War. Before his death in 1925, he donated land for the city to build what is now called the Memorial Boulevard Middle School, on the road called Memorial Boulevard. He also donated the land for Rockwell Park.

S. E. Root House (1870)

We are beginning a week that will cover buildings in Bristol. The home of Samuel Emerson Root on High Street was built in 1870 (According to Bristol Historic Homes, it was built in 1854, although its builder, the inventor Joel T. Case, did not arrive in town until the early 1870s). Root and his partner, Edward Langdon, operated a factory manufacturing clock dials. The house has been altered for use as offices, with a a one-story brick addition being constructed in the twentieth century. The house is now used by the City of Bristol’s Youth Services.