Vernon

10 Ellington Avenue, Rockville (1885)

Cyrus Winchell, a real estate developer, constructed two adjacent Stick style houses on Ellington Avenue in Rockville as investment properties in 1885. The house at 12 Ellington Avenue has already been featured on this site as the Cyrus Winchell House. The house at 10 Ellington Avenue is known to have been designed designed by the firm of Palliser and Palliser of Bridgeport, and the similar No. 12 was likely their work as well. The house was a rental property until 1915, when it was purchased by Sherwood C. Cummings. It has remained in the Cummings family, which possesses original Palliser drawings of the house.

Cyrus Winchell House (1885)

The Cyrus Winchell House, built around 1885, is a Queen Anne home in the Stick Style. Located on Ellington Avenue in Rockville in Vernon, this house (and another adjacent house) were built by Cyrus Winchell, a manufacturer and state senator who originally rented the homes and later sold them to two local businessmen.

Old Rockville High School (1892)

Rockville High School, in Vernon, was founded in 1870. The Old High School building of 1892 was built in Rockville, adjacent to the East School building of 1870. The current High School building, on Loveland Hill Road, was built in 1959. The old High School is now the Vernon Board of Education building.

Rockville Union Congregational Church (1890)

An excellent example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture, the Rockville Union Congregational Church in Vernon was begun in 1889 and completed the following year. It represents the union of two congregations: In 1888, the First Congregational Church of Rockville sold its land for the building of the Memorial Hall Building, while the Second Congregational Church building was destroyed in a fire. The two voted to combine and build a new church, constructed of stone and designed by Warren H. Hayes of Minneapolis, on the site where the Second Congregational Church had stood.

Memorial Building, Rockville (1890)

Built in 1889-1890 in Rockville (part of Vernon) to serve as the Town Hall, the second floor features a Grand Army of the Republic Hall. It is the longest continuously operated GAR hall and the only one still intact with its original contents in Connecticut. Today it is open to the public as the New England Civil War Museum. The museum displays original stained glass windows and Civil War artifacts, including the Thomas F. Burpee Collection and the Hirst Brothers Collection. Originally planned to be constructed of wood, it was eventually decided to build the Memorial Building in stone, as the nearby Congregational church, which had been made of wood, burned down twice! After the church burned down in 1888, the new Union Congregational Church of 1890 was also built in stone. The Memorial Building was built by GAR veterans, one worker falling to his death during the construction. In Central Park in front of the building is the Cogswell Fountain, donated to the town by the temperance activist Henry D. Cogswell in 1883.