The house at 60 West Main Street in Chester was one of several in town built by George M. Abbey (1835-1906), a carpenter and builder. In 1858, he had married Lois A. Brooks (1826-1917). This house, built in 1889, was owned by their son, G. Myron Abbey (1865-1922).
At 4 Maple Street in Chester is the Abel Snow House. Newspapers dating to 1777 and 1785 were found in the walls of the house, indicating its most likely date of construction. Purchased by Abel Snow in 1824, the house was a divided dwelling with retail stores in the nineteenth century and continues today with two apartments above with a retail store below. During a twentieth-century restoration, a small room was found sealed-off from the rest of the house; it is believed someone had once hanged himself in this room in the nineteenth century.
A striking landmark of the village of Chester is the Old Stone Store, built in 1809. It has housed many businesses over the years, as well as a post office. In 1875, when Chester‘s earliest Library Association was founded, the library was located on the second floor of the building. At that time the building was a general store operated by J. Kirtland Denison, who also served as Town Clerk, succeeding his father Judge Socrates Denison in that position in 1877. The building’s prominent columns and Greek Revival pediment were probably added after the Store was built. The two side wings are definitely a modern addition.
According to the History of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1884), the Town of Chester
“is finely situated for manufacturing, having two considerable streams of water running through it, which have their rise in the lower part of Haddam and unite, at tide-water, at the head of the cove. […] The first factory on the south stream is the bitt factory of C. L. Griswold, now occupied by the Chester Manufacturing Company, consisting of Edwin G. Smith, John H. Bailey, and Charles E. Wright, who manufacture auger bitts, corkscrews, reamers, etc. The factory is on the site of a forge built about the year 1816, and occupied by Abel Snow in the forging of ship anchors. About 1838, the building was used for the manufacture of carriage springs, later by C. L. Griswold & Co. for the manufacture of bitts, and by the present owners for the same business.”
The C.L. Griswold Factory building, built around 1870 (or perhaps as early as 1850) continued to be used for manufacturing until 1919. In the 1920s, the building became a Masonic Lodge and was more recently used by the National Theatre of the Deaf. In 2001 the building was purchased by the Chester Historical Society and has been renovated to become the Chester Museum at the Mill.
The old colony of Saybrook covered a geographic area which was later subdivided into many different towns. As was common in the colonial era, these divisions were centered on the establishment of separate church congregations. The original First Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook was founded in what is now Old Saybrook in 1646. Second and Third Societies were established at Centerbrook (now in the town of Essex) in 1725 and at Westbrook in 1726. The Fourth Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook was established in what is now the town of Chester in 1742. The society’s second meeting house was constructed in 1793-1795 and served the congregation until a new church was built (the United Church of Chester now worships in its fourth church building). The old meeting house was then purchased by the town of Chester in 1847 and was used as the Town Hall until 1960, when meetings were moved to a newly constructed elementary school. In addition to town meetings, the building also hosted theatrical productions and other events, facilitated by its remodeling as a theater space in 1876. P.T. Barnum’s star, Tom Thumb, made a notable appearance there and numerous recitals, dances and other events took place over the years. In 1972, the Chester Historical Society, which held its meetings in the building, undertook its restoration. Used again for a variety of meetings and performances, the Chester Meeting House had a new addition constructed in 1985.
