St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Norwalk (1930)

St Paul's Episcopal Church

The Episcopal parish of St. Paul’s in Norwalk was founded in 1737. As described in Norwalk After Two Hundred & Fifty Years (1901):

This is the second oldest ecclesiastical organization in Norwalk. As early as 1729 there appears to have been desultory Episcopal services holden in Norwalk. Rev. Henry Caner of Fairfield, was probably the first clergyman known to have here officiated. His incumbency dates from 1737, at which period the worship of the Episcopal church seems to have been celebrated in a small and temporary frame structure which stood on the extreme northeasterly portion of the present St. Paul’s grounds on Newtown avenue. This structure seems to have served the parish purpose until 1742, when the building, afterward destroyed by Tryon, was erected. [. . .]

A new church edifice rose over the ashes of the temple burned in 1779, which building stood until 1840

That third church building was replaced by a frame Carpenter Gothic structure that stood until it was torn down and replaced by the current church on Norwalk Green. The cornerstone was laid on November 12, 1927 and the church was consecrated on June 9, 1930. Visitors reach the church through its ancient burial ground (see photo) from St. Paul’s Place, a short street along the northern boundary of the Green. (more…)

Frederick Belden House (1850)

Belden House

Today is the Ninth Anniversary of Historic Buildings of Connecticut! It’s been one post a day for nine years!

Frederick Belden (1818-1893) was a wealthy Norwalk merchant. C. 1850 he built the Italianate house at 75 East Avenue across from Norwalk Green. Frederick Belden married twice, first to Catherine E Gruman Belden (1822-1864) and then to Sarah E Hill Belden (1840-1911), the oldest daughter of Ebenezer Hill, a banker and founder of the Norwalk Lock Company and the Norwalk Iron Works. The Belden house is mentioned in Norwalk (1896), by Charles M. Selleck:

The Frederick Belden residence “on the green” supplanted the more ancient Grumman home, and was presided over by those to whom refinement and good breeding seemed a second nature. Mrs. Belden was gracefully dignified and of pleasing presence. Her good mother, Mrs. Gruman, who was for many years her daughter’s care, was, like her near neighbor, Mrs. Senator Thaddeus Betts, a feeling friend. Those of Miss Susan Betts’ school children who yet remain may recall how that good instructress was wont, during the noon recess on the green, to receive warm, appetizing viands, as a mid-day luncheon. She was unforgotten in the school’s generous vicinity. As the Belden children approached maturity the bright home invited the young. The second Mrs. Belden has preserved its reputation.

Most recently used as a funeral parlor, last summer the house sold for $250,000.

First Congregational Church on the Green, Norwalk (1924)

First Congregational Church on the Green, Norwalk

The first meeting house of Norwalk’s First Congregational Church was erected in 1659 at the corner of East Avenue and Fort Point Street. The current building, at the corner of Park and Lewis Streets, faces Norwalk Green from the west. It was built c. 1924, replacing the 1848 church on the site that was destroyed by fire in 1917. The meeting house on the Green before that was burned by the British in 1779 during the Revolutionary War. In 2012 a hive of honey bees that had nested in church’s steeple were rescued.

Norwalk Town House (1835)

Old Norwalk Town House Museum

Located in Mill Hill Historic Park in Norwalk is the former Town House (or Town Hall), a Federal-style brick structure erected in 1835. Norwalk’s first Town House was erected by 1736 at the site of the old Trolley Barn at Wall and Knight Streets. A newer Town House was later built at Mill Hill, but it was destoyed when the British burned Norwalk on July 11, 1779 during the Revolutionary War. It took fifteen years before a new structure was erected in 1794. As described by John Warner Barber in his Connecticut Historical Collections (1836):

The old town house was pulled down in July, 1835. It had been long in a ruinous state, and much disfigured the appearance of the place. Some persons in the town who took upon themselves the responsibility of regulating things of this nature about the town, being impatient of the “law’s delay,” took advantage of the darkness of night, pulled down the obnoxious building, and piled up the rubbish by the side of the road.

The current building was built by by Captain Lewis Raymond, who used brick brought to Norwalk as ship’s ballast. The building was used as the seat of government until the Town of Norwalk and the City of South Norwalk were consolidated in 1913. Starting in 1924, the Norwalk Daughters of the American Revolution leased the building from the city, eventually adding a rear kitchen wing. The building was restored in 1965 for meeting and educational purposes. Still owned by the city, it is maintained, along with the rest of Mill Hill Historic Park, by the Norwalk Historical Society and the Norwalk-Village Green Chapter of the DAR.

Moose Home (1932)

Moose Hall

The Loyal Order of Moose is a fraternal and service organization. The Moose Lodge in Norwalk built Moose Hall at 68 South Main Street in 1932. The Moose Lodge had already occupied an earlier building on the same site. The building was purchased by Corinthian Lodge No. 16, F&AM, in the summer of 1995. The Corinthian Lodge sold the building to the City of Norwalk in 2014. Plans are for Moose Hall and its neighbor, the former Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building at 70 South Main Street, to be resold for mixed-use development. This past August, the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency requested proposals to make Environmental Site Assessment reports on the two buildings to evaluate their condition and estimate costs of rehabilitation.