As the Irish population of Torrington grew in the mid-nineteenth century, a wood frame Catholic church was built on Main Street in 1859. St. Francis of Assisi mission became a parish in 1874 and on November 13, 1887, a new Gothic-style St. Francis of Assisi Church, replacing the earlier wooden one, was both dedicated and consecrated on the same day, allegedly the first instance of this dual ecclesiastical honor in the nation.
The Hotchkiss-Fyler House was built in 1897 for Orsamus R. Fyler and his family. Fyler was prominent in Connecticut politics, serving as a reforming State Insurance Commissioner, State Railroad Commissioner and Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. Fyler occupied the house with his wife, Mary, and their daughter and son-in-law, Gertrude and Edward Hotchkiss, who were married in 1896. When Gertrude Fyler Hotchkiss died in 1956, she bequeathed the Fyler-Hotchkiss Estate to the Torrington Historical Society. The Chateauesque Hotchkiss-Fyler House became a house museum and headquarters of the Society.
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