Church of the Holy Trinity, Middletown (1874)

The Church of the Holy Trinity in Middletown is an Episcopal church, built of local brownstone and designed in the Gothic Revival style by Henry Dudley. The first Anglican services in Middletown were conducted around 1730 and a parish, called Christ Church, was formally organized in 1750. The first church building was built in 1755 on South Green, followed by the second on Broad Street (now used as Russell Library) in 1834. Martha Mortimer Starr (1777-1848) bequeathed her land on Main Street to the parish on condition that it be renamed Church of the Holy Trinity. The name was changed in 1857 and the current church was built in 1870-1874 at 381 Main Street. Among the rectors of the church was Dr. Edward Campion Acheson, who served from 1892 to 1915 and was later bishop of Connecticut. His son, Dean Acheson, later served as Secretary of State in the administration of Harry S. Truman.

Hotchkiss Block (1894)

The Hotchkiss Block is a late-nineteenth-century commercial/residential building at 598-614 Main Street in Middletown. A large structure, it has Renaissance Revival elements and its impressive roof cornice, bay windows and first floor cornice are clad in pressed metal. The building is named for Frederick Hotchkiss, who built it c. 1894 and whose family owned it until 1919. It was then owned by Israel Mittleman, whose ground-floor clothing store had been in the building since 1910.

Middletown Alms House (1814)

The building at 53 Warwick Street in Middletown was built in 1814 to house the town’s poor. The Alms House was used as a poorhouse until the Town Farm opened on Silver Street in 1853. A number of businesses and organizations have since used the building, starting with the Hubbard and Curtis Hardware Company, and later including the Middletown Fire Arms and Specialty Company, the Middletown Rifle Club and the C.B. Stone Oil Company. The building once had a classical cupola on the roof and a central pavilion with a projecting gable roof (both were later removed, but the pavilion has been restored). It is now owned by by Lee Godburn, who has a hair salon in the building.

Rev. Joseph Graves House (1775)

On Miner Street, in the Westfield section of Middletown, across from the Third Congregational Church, is a house built sometime between 1775 and 1800, by Rev. Joseph Graves, first pastor of the Westfield Baptist Church. Rev. Graves was a descendent of Deacon John Graves, whose 1685 house is located in Madison. The house passed to Joseph Graves’s son, Josiah Graves, who also succeeded his father as Baptist minister. The house was in the family until 1884. It has matching additions on either side of the front facade.

Samuel T. Camp House (1865)

The Italianate-style house at 180 College Street in Middletown was built in 1865-1866 by Jeremiah Hubbard and sold, shortly thereafter, to Samuel Talcott Camp. In 1858, Camp had started a grocery business on Main Street with B.F. Chaffee. Camp was president of the Farmers & Mechanics Savings Bank, He was also a Trustee of Wesleyan University from 1880 to 1903. In 1905, the Board of Trustees established the Camp Prize in his memory, awarded for excellence in English Literature. After his death, his widow, Martha E. Smith Camp, remained in the house until her own death in 1924. The house was then acquired by Frank A. Smith, who added stucco to the exterior. (more…)

White-Stoddard House (1870)

Henry White built the house at 33 Pleasant Street in Middletown, which faces South Green, around 1870. White was in the coal business. As described in The Leading Business Men of Middeltown, Portland, Durham and Middlefield (1890):

The [coal] business now conducted by Mr. Levi S. Deming was founded many years ago by Mr. H. S. White, who was succeeded about 1860 by Messrs. White & Loveland, who gave place to Messrs. Loveland & Deming in 1871. In 1878 the firm-name became White & Deming, and in 1887 the present proprietor [Deming] (who is a native of Newington, Conn.) assumed sole control.

White was also a president of the Victor Sewing Machine Company, which was in business from 1864 to 1883. In 1895, Orrin E. Stoddard purchased the house from the heirs of Henry White. Stoddard was a partner with George Thomas Meech (they had served in the Civil War together) in a grocery business, Meech & Stoddard. According to the Encyclopedia of Connecticut Biography (c. 1917), “Besides dealing in grain, the establishment has long conducted a milling business and does both wholesale and retail trades throughout the New England territory and in other sections.” In 1927, the house was acquired by the Masons and is now home to St. John’s Lodge No. 2. The Masons added a large addition to the rear of the house.

Ward-Cody Building (1890)

This week the focus is on buildings in Middletown. The Ward-Cody Building, at 502-508 Main Street, is one of many surviving Victorian commercial buildings in downtown Middletown. It was built in 1889 or 1890 by George N. Ward, who developed much of the north section of Main Street in the later nineteenth century. In 1919, the building was purchased by Richard E. Cody, whose shoe store was located here for many decades. A marker on the building notes that this was, on November 26, 1899, the birthplace of Major General Maurice Rose, a son and grandson of rabbis, who was commander of the Third Armored Division (“Spearhead”) in World War II. On March 30, 1945, Rose became the highest-ranking American to be killed by enemy fire in the War’s European Theater of Operations.