Greenmanville Church (1851)

The Greenmanville Church at Mystic Seaport was built in 1851 during the area’s heyday as a shipbuilding center. As related in Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, Vol. II (1910):

In 1838 three brothers, George, Clarke and Thomas S. Greenman, members of the First Hopkinton church, settled in Mystic, Conn., and commenced the ship-building business. Thirteen years later, 1849, they built a mill for the manufacture of woolen goods. About these industries sprang up a village called Greenmanville. The most of those working in the ship-yard were Sabbath-keepers, and being several miles removed from any Seventh-day Baptist church, it was deemed wise to organize one. This was done in August, 1850, with about forty members. The constituent members were mostly from the First Hopkinton church, a few from the Waterford church, and one from the Newport church. The largest membership, fifty-six, was reached the first year and it held pretty well up to this for thirty years. Its present (1902) number is eighteen.

Though it never enrolled a large number of members, yet it exercised a wide influence in denominational and other circles. George Greenman, a member of this church, was president of the Seventh-day Baptist Missionary Society for thirty-one years. The leading men of the church took an active part in the anti-slavery struggle, and the temperance cause has been supported by these godly men. Clarke Greenman, Thomas S. Greenman and Benjamin F. Langworthy served the town in the state legislature at different times.

The congregation was depleted with the decline of the shipyard in the 1870s and 1880s and the selling of the woolen mill to owners of another denomination. The church closed in 1904 and the building then served as a private residence and an apartment building before it was acquired by Mystic Seaport in 1955. The Seaport moved the church from its original site (near the current Visitor Center) to its present location. For a time, the church was called the Aloha Meetinghouse and was a nondenominational church. Mystic Seaport added the current tower clock, built in 1857 by the Howard Clock Company of Massachusetts. The clock is on loan from Yale, where it was once located in the Old South Sheffield Hall of the Sheffield Scientific School. (more…)

Dr. J. K. Bucklyn, Jr. House (1890)

Dr. John K. Bucklyn, Jr. was the son of John Knight Bucklyn (1834-1906), a Civil War veteran who in 1899 earned the Medal of Honor for his action during the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863. The senior Bucklyn was an educator who founded the Mystic Valley Institute in 1868. His two sons both attended the Institute and then the New York Medical College to became doctors. Dr. J. K. Bucklyn, Jr. built the house at 56-58 East Main Street in Mystic c. 1890. As described in Picturesque New London and Its Environs (1901):

The residence and offices of Dr. John Knight Bucklyn, Jr., one of its ablest physicians, are located on East Main Street, Mystic, and are connected by telephone. Dr. Bucklyn is a graduate of the New York Medical College, class of 1887, and of the Mystic Valley English and Classical Institute, J. K. Bucklyn, L.L.D., Principal. He has a large practice in Mystic, Stonington, Old Mystic, Noank, Poquonnock, and New London. He is a member of the Odd Fellows, and Medical Examiner for the Prudential Life Insurance Company, of Newark, New Jersey, and for the Knights of Pythias. His office hours are from 2 to 3, and 7 to 8 P. M. Dr. Bucklyn was born in Mystic July 31st, 1865, son of Professor John K. Bucklyn and Mary M. Young Bucklyn. On June 25th, 1891, he was united in marriage to Mary Emma Hall, of Mystic.

Dr. Bucklyn also owned a 35-foot full cabin power boat.

Mystic Bank (1833)

Now located at Mystic Seaport, the Mystic Bank was originally built in 1833 in Old Mystic, at the head of the Mystic River. The first president of the bank was Elias Brown and the first cashier was George W. Noyes, who later held the same position at the Mystic River Bank. The Mystic Bank moved its operations to a new brick building in 1856. The first floor of the old bank building then became the post office and the upper floor was used as a carpenter’s shop. The building would be used for different purposes over the years until 1948-1951, when it was moved to Mystic Seaport. The current front portico is a reproduction of the original. (more…)

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Mystic (1867)

Begun as a mission in 1859, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic was organized as a parish in 1865. That same year, the parish acquired land at what is now 15 Pearl Street for a church. The cornerstone was laid in 1866 and the first service was held on Christmas Morning, 1867. Once the church was free from its large construction debt of $9,000, the building was dedicated on St. Mark’s Day, April 25, 1873. An education wing was erected in 1962.

Masonic Temple, Mystic (1911)

At 7 Gravel Street in Mystic is a building erected in 1911-1912 as a Masonic Temple for Charity & Relief Lodge No. 72. The Lodge had its origins as Charity Lodge No. 68, formed in 1825, which first met in Gurton Bill’s Tavern in Groton. The Lodge was inactive from 1846 to 1850 due to its members unwillingness to move to Mystic. After this move took place, the Lodge met on the Stonington side and then on the Groton side of the Mystic River. A split led to the creation in 1869 of Relief Lodge No. 71 on the other side of the river. Charity Lodge lost its rooms in the Central Hall Building on West Main Street due to a fire in 1880 and were invited to used Relief Lodge’s rooms until new quarters were found. The two lodges reunited in 1891-1892 to form Charity and Relief Lodge #72. After almost of century on Gravel Street, the Lodge faced declining membership and the lack of parking. It merged with Asylum Lodge No. 57 and Pawcatuck Lodge No. 90 to form Costal Lodge No. 57, which meets on Pequot Trail in Stonington. In January 2008, the former Masonic Temple on Gravel Street was sold to developers, who converted the building into two condominium units by 2010.

Fishtown Chapel (1889)

The Fishtown Chapel at Mystic Seaport was originally erected by the community of Fishtown in Mystic to serve as a place for Sunday School and prayer meetings in 1889. It took only three weeks to build. For a time around 1900 the Chapel served as a schoolhouse for Groton’s Ninth School District. It then remained unused for many decades until it was moved to Mystic Seaport in 1949. Restored, it was rededicated as a chapel in 1950. As seen in old postcards of the Chapel, it once had a steeple which has since been removed. (more…)