The former Locust Avenue School, at 26 Locust Avenue in Danbury, was built in 1896 as an elementary school to serve students in the eastern part of the city. The Romanesque Revival structure was designed by architect Warren R. Briggs of Bridgeport, who featured an illustration and floorplan of the school in his book, Modern American School Buildings (1899), where its referred to as “Center School.” His advanced ideas of school construction involved a ventilation system and high ceilings to keep the classrooms airy and bright with abundant natural light. Briggs had earlier designed a sister school, erected on Morris Street in 1893, that served students in the western part of the city.
The former home of the Danbury Library, located at 256 Main Street, was built in 1876-1878 and served as the city’s library until the current building was erected at 170 Main Street in 1970. Beginning in 1771, there had been several successive library organizations in Danbury, the last of which disbanded in the 1850s. As related in James Montgomery Bailey’s History of Danbury, Conn. (1896), the creation of a permanent library was
substantially the gift of one family, that of the late E. Moss White, [a successful farmer and merchant] of Danbury. The late William Augustus White, of Brooklyn, son of E. Moss White, by his last will and testament bequeathed the sum of $10,000, to be paid five years after his decease, for the establishment of a public library in his native borough of Danbury. The Legislature of Connecticut, at its session in 1869, passed an act incorporating the Danbury Library, which act was approved by the Governor, June 5th, 1869. On June 1st, 1870, Alexander M. White, of Brooklyn, brother of William Augustus White, and sole executor of his will, placed at the disposal of the trustees of the library the house on Main Street, in which he was born and in which his parents died, to be used for library purposes until a suitable building could be erected upon the premises.
The E. Moss White White Homestead, erected in 1790, housed the library until 1876. At that point, Alexander M. White (who was a partner in Danbury’s leading hatters’ fur processing firm) donated the house and land to the library. With his brother, George Granville White, he provided the funds necessary to move the house to a rear lot and erect a brand new library building in its place. Designed by architect Lorenzo Wheeler, the Danbury Library opened in 1878. It became a free library in 1893. Initially, the downstairs rooms were rented for offices with the library on the second story. Later, the lower level was converted into the Children’s Room. In the 1930s, artist Charles Federer of Bethel, painted murals depicting fairy tales in the Children’s Room as a W.P.A. project. Today the former library building is the Danbury Music Center. In 1994, the Marian Anderson Recital Hall was dedicated on the second floor. (more…)
A church that should be a church home for people, irrespective of social position or wealth, was a leading motive in the gathering in the basement of the First Church, May 20th, 1851. With no brilliant prospects and no encouragement from the older church, it was voted to try the experiment of a second Congregational church. Mr. Horace Bull was the chairman of that committee, and Henry Lobdell with L. C. Hoyt were appointed to arrange for a preacher and a place of meeting. Mr. William C. Scofield, of Yale Seminary, was engaged to preach for eight Sabbaths, and on June 17th enough encouragement had been received to warrant a vote to formally organize the new church, which organization was recognized by the Fairfield East Convention on July 9th. The church thus instituted numbered twenty-three, of whom twelve were men.
After worshipping in the building of the Universalist Society for four months, meetings were held in the court-room over the Town Hall, but May 6th, 1852, the young church dedicated its own house of worship on Main Street, nearly opposite the present Court House. It was built on leased ground, and after eleven years it was sold to the Roman Catholic Church.
The new church struggled during its earliest years, but eventually a new brick church was dedicated on May 9, 1865. Located at 32 West Street, it became known as the West Street Congregational Church. In 1889, composer Charles Ives, a teenager at the time, became the church’s organist. Today the building is home to Lighthouse Ministries International.
During the first two years of the life of the church the meetings were held each Lord’s Day at the home of Mr. [Levi] Osborne, situated on the corner of what are now Osborne and Summit streets, but at that time far outside the borough limits. [. . .] In 1819 Mr. Osborne fitted up a room for church purposes in the loft of his weaver’s shop, in the same yard with his house. This room served as a place of meeting for twenty-one years.
[. . .] It was not until the year 1827 that the brotherhood at large became a distinct religious body, known as the Disciples of Christ, or Christian Church; but not until many years later did the church in Danbury adopt the name Disciples of Christ. During the periods mentioned they were known as Osbornites, after the name of Mr. Osborne, who had been the presiding officer and leading spirit from the first.
In 1840, the church began to worship in a new building. According to Teagarden, “This new building stood directly opposite the present site of the New England Hotel, about where the electric-light tower now stands.” In 1853 occurred
the removal of the congregation from White Street to Liberty Street, near Main, their present location. At a cost of $2000 the society purchased a house and lot from the Methodist church, which had vacated it for larger quarters.
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