Rev. George Mixter House (1842)

According to A Century of Vernon, Connecticut, 1808-1908 (1911):

The history of the Baptist denomination in the vicinity of Vernon begins as far back as 1842, when at the request of several brethren a meeting was held on April 8 at the home of Thomas King in Ellington “to consult upon the propriety of constituting a Baptist church in said town.” In the afternoon of that day the church was organized, but this organization disbanded in 1845, but before doing so the membership had grown to thirty-two members. Rev. George Mixter was the first pastor.

The same year the church was founded, Rev. Mixter built a Greek Revival house at 113 Main Street in Ellington. As related in The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut, Vol. I (1898), by Henry R. Stiles:

Rev. George Mixter was born in Monson, Mass., Jan. 7, 1795. He had no distinctively theological education, but began to preach in Monson and Wilbraham about 1835. He was ordained and settled at Wales, Mass., in 1836, and removed from there early in 1842 to Ellington, where he remained about three years. He afterwards preached at various places in eastern Connecticut till 1862, when he gave up pastoral work on account of failing health, but continued to preach occasionally. He died at Somerville, Conn., Jan. 8, 1879.

The Mixter House once had a Greek Revival entrance portico. In recent years, it was replaced with a Colonial Revival door surround.

Knesseth Israel Synagogue (1913)

Knesseth Israel Synagogue

Knesseth Israel Synagogue was built in Ellington in 1913 by Congregation Knesseth Israel [“The Gathering of Israel”], an Orthodox congregation of Jewish farm families. The shul was designed in the Colonial Revival style by Leon Dobkin and was built partly with funds from the Jewish Colonization Association. Founded by Baron Maurice de Hirsch, a wealthy German-Jewish philanthropist, the JCA encouraged Orthodox Eastern European Jews to become farmers. Knesseth Israel Synagogue was moved in 1954 from its original location, at the corner of Abbott and Middle roads, to its current address at 226 Pinney Street.

Ellington Congregational Church (1915)

Four church buildings have served the Ellington Congregational Church since it was established in 1733. The first two churches, built in 1738 or 1739 and 1805-1806 respectively, stood in the town park. The first faced South (now Main) Street and the second, designed and constructed by builder Samuel Belcher, faced the site of the current church. When a new church was completed, the second building was sold and moved to Rockville, where it served as an opera house. It burned down in 1941. The third building, designed by Augustus Truesdale of Rockville, was constructed in 1867-1868 on the site of the current church. The building was completely destroyed by fire on the night of October 3, 1914. At that time, the church bell was usually rung to sound the alarm that there was a fire in town, but with the church itself on fire, no one could climb the steeple to toll the bell and the church burned down. Work on the current church building commenced in 1915 and it was dedicated on August 17, 1916.

Nellie E. McKnight Museum (1812)

The Nellie E. McKnight Museum is a historic house owned by the Ellington Historical Society. Located at 70 Main Street, the brick Federal house was built in 1812 for Charles Sexton, a farmer and store owner. Howard McKnight, the father of Nellie E. McKnight, bought the house in 1922. Nellie McKnight had been born on her father’s farm in Ellington in 1894. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1917 and taught school until 1929, when she return to Ellington and became the librarian of the Hall Memorial Library, a position she held until her retirement in 1967. She continued to live in the Sexton/McKnight house until her death in 1981, when the house and its contents were bequeathed to the Historical Society to become a museum.