The first meetinghouse of the Wolcott Congregational Church was built in 1773 on “Benson’s Hill” in Farmingbury, where Farmington and Waterbury then met. It is now the location of Wolcott Green. Farmingbury became the Town of Wolcott in 1796. The current church was constructed in 1841-1842 on the site of the earlier meetinghouse, which burned down in 1839. Brick additions were made to the church in the 1930s and a parish house was attached around 1950.
The Old Stone Schoolhouse (pdf) is located at 155 Nichols Road in Wolcott. An extension was added to the building in 1898, which was attached to a frame woodshed (built in 1882) to form a new wing. At the time the addition was made, the date 1825 was inscribed in the school’s front gable, although the oldest part of the building may date back to 1821. In either case, the building is recognized as the oldest stone schoolhouse in Connecticut. Built as the town’s Southwest District school, it was in continuous use until 1930, when a new school was built. It was then purchased by Emily Morris of New Haven, whose grandfather, Lucius Tuttle, had taught at the school in 1829. In 1937, she gave it to the Mattatuck Historical Society of Waterbury and in 1963 it was purchased by the Wolcott Historical Society and is used as a museum of the town’s history.
The Bishop-Woodward House, at 205 Center Street in Wolcott was built in 1790 for Bnai Bishop, who ran an adjacent store. Bishop also accommodated travelers in his house and there was a stable to the rear. It was later the home of Reverend Israel B. Woodward (1767-1810), the second minister of Wolcott‘s Congregational Church, who also ran a school in the house for young men training for the ministry. According to John Warner Barber in his Connecticut Historical Collections, Rev. Woodward,
though somewhat eccentric in some parts of his conduct, was a person of superior intelligence and esteemed by his parishioners. A thanksgiving sermon of his is recollected, in which he compared the state of Connecticut to the land of Canaan. In one respect, he mentioned, there was a striking similarity; the land of Canaan was rocky, this was very much the case with Connecticut, at least with that part of it in which Wolcott was situated.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the house was home to Adelbert Woods, Wolcott’s last postmaster.
The house at 1 Farmingbury Road, facing the Green in Wolcott, was built in 1797 for Darius Wiard, who only lived there until 1803. The house is notable for having a surprisingly ornate doorway and pediment for a one-story Cape Cod-type house.
The Daniel Tuttle House is a Federal-style saltbox house built in Wolcott in 1792. The house is located at 4 Kenea Avenue and faces Wolcott Green. Daniel Tuttle worked as a carpenter. Seth Thomas, who would later become a famous clock manufacturer, began his career in Wolcott as an apprentice to Daniel Tuttle. Thomas would eventually build his factory in Plymouth Hollow, which was later renamed Thomaston in his honor. In 1797, Tuttle sold his house to Asoph Hotchkiss and moved to Plymouth. Hotchkiss was one of three men who donated land for what would become the town Green. The house passed through other owners, who oversaw the construction of a stone wall around the property and the landscaping of the grounds with shrubs and flower gardens. In 1964, All Saints’ Episcopal Church was built on the property to the rear of the house, which was serving as the parish rectory. Today, the house is again under private ownership.
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