The American Legion Hall at 18 Main Street in Hebron was built in 1883 as the town’s Center School (District No. 1). A two-room schoolhouse, it replaced an earlier one-room Center Schoolhouse that burned down in the Great Fire of 1882. Because it was the largest school in town at the time, students from one-room schoolhouses in Hebron that were closing in the 1930s were transferred to the Center School. The building was in use as a school until 1949 and then was transferred to the American Legion.
The Hebron Library Association was formed in 1889, taking over the 200 volumes of the Hebron Literary Society, formed the previous year. Originally requiring a yearly subscription, in 1899 the organization became a free library. Books were located at the home of the Association’s president, Dr. Cyrus H. Pendleton, until a library building was erected at 22 Main Street in Hebron in 1898-1899. Its name was changed to the Douglas Library in 1949, after Dr. Charles J. Douglas endowed a large sum of money in memory of his wife, Ida Porter Douglas. She had no only greatly assisted the library over the years, but had been the driving force organizing Hebron’s Bicentennial Celebration in 1908. An addition to the building was erected in 1957. The library was much expanded and thoroughly modernized in the late 1990s. The library became a town department in 2005.
The large Federal-style brick house at 4 Main Street (the corner of Routes 66 and 85) in Hebron was built c. 1820-1826 by Augustus Post. He soon sold the large residence and it passed through a series of owners that included Dr. John S. Peters and his business partner Abner Hendee. Peters was Governor of Connecticut from 1831 to 1833. In the late nineteenth century the house was acquired by W. S. Hewitt, who used it for his general store and post office. At some point the house was extended on the north side with a frame addition. The west side of the house has an entrance with a twentieth-century shed-roofed portico and the south side entrance was once altered to function as the storefront. The Hewitt family owned the house into the 1970s and it is commonly known as the Hewitt House. In 1978 the house was converted into office space. At that time the current Federal-style entrance on the south side was created.
In 1747 residents of Hebron voted to crate a second Congregational parish within the town. Located in the section called Gilead, the new church was formally incorporated in May 1748 and the first meeting house was erected the following year. This building was torn down and replaced by the current Gilead Congregational Church, located at 672 Gilead Street, in 1838.
Hebron was incorporated as a town in 1708. The community’s religious services were held in private homes before a meeting house was constructed. There was intense debate in 1716 concerning where to built it, either north of the center village or on the Green. Eventually, a site on the Green was selected. The building was soon erected, although it was not fully finished in 1723-1724. Agitation developed over the formation of separate parishes and in 1747 the Connecticut General Court removed sections of Hebron to become parts of two new towns: the northeastern section becoming part of Andover and the western section part of Marlborough. The northwest corner of town remained part of Hebron, but was set off as a distinct ecclesiastical society, called now the Gilead Congregational Church, which held its first meeting in 1748. F. Clarence Bissell has related (in an address for Hebron’s Bicentennial in 1908):
Returning again to the situation of the town about the time that it was divided into religious societies; the first meeting house was in a ruinous condition, and there was much difference of opinion as to the location of a new one. But the necessity for a new one was emphasized by the burning of the old. This occurred Oct. 8, 1747 and was caused by an incendiary hired for that purpose, a half witted young man, who was afterwards prosecuted and committed to jail for the crime. During the year in which the old meeting house was burned there were held ten society meetings regarding a new one. It was finally voted to build a new house 60 feet by 48 feet and 25 foot posts, on the place where the old house stood. The new house was built in 1748 arid it contained some timbers that were already hewed for the addition for the first house, and saved from the fire. Some of these same timbers were afterwards used in building the new church in 1828, the building which many of us remember as standing until the fire of 1882.
That fire was described by Cyrus H. Pendleton (again at the Bicentennial):
April 17, 1882, a fire broke out upon the roof of a building, the lower story of which was occupied by Lucien H. Leonard as a store, his family residing in the story above. The fire started from sparks from the chimney. This building, known as the Hendee Store, stood just west of the Congregational Church, and with it was burned, the church and four other buildings on the north side of the Green, and the schoolhouse and two other buildings on the south side. The church and schoolhouse were rebuilt the same year, and two of the dwellings soon after.
The current First Congregational Church building was dedicated on May 1, 1883.
