New Preston Congregational Church (1853)

The New Preston Congregational Church, located at 15 Church Street in the New Preston section of the town of Washington, was built in about 1853. The New Preston Ecclesiastical Society was originally established in 1753 and its first meeting house was located southwest of the common at New Preston Hill (at the intersection of New Preston Hill, Findley, & Gunn Hill Roads). The Society decided to build a second meeting house in 1766 at the northwest corner of the common and this was replaced in 1824 by a stone church building that still exists today and is known as the Hill Church. By the mid-nineteenth century, New Preston Center, a mile to the east, had developed into an industrial center and the congregation decided (after much debate) to erect a new church there in 1853. This is the current New Preston Congregational Church, while the Hill Church is used for summer services. In 1886 the church ordered a Steere & Turner Opus #221 organ which was restored in 1969.