Atwater Memorial Library (1942)

Yesterday I posted about the Gordon S. Miller Farm Museum in North Branford. The museum is located adjacent to the Historical Society’s Reynolds-Beers House and the Atwater Memorial Library. The oldest section of the Library was built in 1942-1943 on the site of the town’s old Training Ground. The library was built with funds left to the town by a grandson of the Rev. Charles Atwater, the third minister of the North Branford Congregational Church. An addition to the library was constructed in 1967.

Gordon S Miller Farm Museum (2002)

One of the properties of the Totoket Historical Society in North Branford is the Gordon S. Miller Farm Museum. Housed in a traditional New England barn constructed in 2002, the museum collection contains farm machinery and farm implements used in Northford and North Branford going back over two centuries, as well as artifacts discovered in local archeological digs sponsored by the society. The museum is named for Gordon S. Miller, a long time resident of Northford and a former President of the Totoket Historical Society.

North Branford Hall (1876)

The building that is known today as North Branford Hall was erected c. 1876 as the town’s Center School (District #2). Located at 1675 Foxon Road in North Branford, it replaced an earlier school building on the site that had been moved there from across the street in 1866 when the Soldiers’ Monument was erected. After a new Center School was built in 1920, the 1876 building was acquired by the North Branford Civic Association. The former school, which has lost its original bell tower, would served for many years as Town Hall and later (until 2013) as a senior center. A rear addition was constructed in 1925. Last year, the building was completely renovated to become the new home of Totoket TV’s Community Media Center.

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George Baldwin House (1832)

At 530 Foxon Road in North Branford is a one-story hip-roofed house with a grand Greek Revival entryway. The house’s distinctive design has been attributed to the famed architect Ithiel Town. In 1827, Deacon Israel Baldwin deeded forty-two acres of land to his son, Micah Baldwin, a New York merchant, who may have known the architect. In 1834, Micah gave the house, erected c. 1832, and the land to his nephew, George Baldwin, a farmer of modest means. The house has many secret hiding places and the basement may once have had a connecting tunnel, leading to the conclusion it may have been built specifically to serve as a station on the Underground Railroad. Micah and his brother Josiah Baldwin were abolitionists and Town may have been sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause. The house was owned by the Doody family from 1919 to 1948.

Reynolds-Beers House (1786)

The Reynolds-Beers House is a Dutch gambrel-roofed historic home, owned by the Town of North Branford since 1997 and operated as a museum by the Totoket Historical Society. Located at 1740 Foxon Road, the house was erected in 1786 by Hezekiah Reynolds (1756-1833), who later moved to Wallingford. A painter, he was the author of Directions for House and Ship Painting (1812). By the 1930s, the house was owned by Earle Beers. There are two ells on the rear, or east, side of the house, added at different times in the nineteenth century. The south ell is in the Greek Revival style.

North Branford Congregational Church (1909)

The Second Ecclesiastical Society of Branford, also called the North Society, was established in 1724. Work soon began on a meeting house, after a debate that considered three possible sites for the building. It was eventually decided to erect the edifice “on the knoll on the west side of the river, at the place near Samuel Harrison’s.” Work began in 1726 and it was finished in 1732 with the completion of the gallery. As related by Rev. Elijah C. Baldwin in his “Annals of North Branford,” as quoted in Vol. II of S. L. Rockey’s History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892):

That meeting house had its location very near the present newer structure at the center. It stood and was used until after the present meeting house was finished. It is remembered by some persons now living. Its windows were small and diamond-shaped and numerous. It had doors on the east, west and south sides. The pulpit was high and shut-in galleries went around three sides, and they were quite high. The floor of the house was a step below the sills as you entered. Box pews for families covered the floor. Above the pulpit was hung a square, roof-like structure for a sounding board. In later years the bats had nests in this and occupied them with impunity, because of many years accumulation of dust and filth, that seemed out of the reach of all cleaning efforts that were made in those days. It was no uncommon thing for a bat to get loose during a service and go scooting through the house, to the manifest discomfort of many in the congregation.

The Second Society and Third (Northford) Society of Branford incorporated as the new town of North Branford in 1831. The first town election was held in the basement of the just completed Second Society’s second meeting house. As described in Rockey’s book:

The new meeting house was begun May 26th, 1830, six feet north of the old house, and was dedicated in April, 1831. In the winter of 1870-1, a pulpit recess was added and the house was thoroughly renovated. It has since been kept in good repair. The church property was further improved in the fall of 1886, when a neat frame Gothic chapel and parish house was built, near the main edifice. Its cost was about $2,000, which was largely the gift of Mrs. George Rose and Mrs. Lucretia Plant, assisted by others of the parish. This house was dedicated January 16th, 1887.

On February 1, 1908, the church burned down in a fire, although the 1887 Chapel was saved, thanks to a bucket brigade from the nearby river. A new North Branford Congregational Church edifice was built on the same site and has been in use since Easter, 1909. A parish house, containing the church school and fellowship hall, was erected in 1960, connecting the 1909 Sanctuary to the 1887 Chapel.

Josiah Fowler Tavern (1776)

Josiah Fowler Tavern

Travelers along the Old Post Road could once find accommodations at Josiah Fowler’s Tavern in Northford (current address 1710 Middletown Avenue). Fowler, who came to Northford in North Branford from Durham, built his tavern in 1776. The front entrance’s original five-pane colonial overlight survives as part of a later Federal doorway. Josiah Fowler‘s son, Maltby Fowler started Northford’s first industrial enterprise when he built a Button Shop in 1830.