Mansfield Training School and Hospital: Superintendent’s House (1870/1931)

The Connecticut Colony for Epileptics was established in Mansfield in 1909. At that time, it was believed that people with epilepsy should be segregated in a “colony” where there daily lives would be carefully regulated. The Colony was located in a rural area and included a farm that supplied the institution with food and provided occupational therapy. An older cross-gable brick farmhouse, built in 1870, became the Superintendent’s house. In 1917, the Colony merged with the Connecticut Training School for the Feeble-Minded in Lakeville and the resulting institution, the Mansfield Training School and Hospital, continued in operation until 1993. The school’s campus would grow to include over fifty buildings. The Superintendent’s house was remodeled in 1931 with the addition of two 2-story wings and an entry portico. The building later served as the Administration Building and then as the Physical Plant. When the school closed, some of the buildings were demolished and the rest were divided between the Bergin Correctional Institution and the University of Connecticut, which uses the property as its Depot Campus. The former Superintendent’s House is on what was the Bergin Correctional Institution‘s property at 251 Middle Turnpike (Route 44). The prison closed in 2011 and the land was transferred to UCONN in 2015.