David Badger House (1790)

The house at 571 West Main Street in Cheshire was built c. 1790 by David Badger. He was an early proponent of the Episcopal Church in Cheshire and served as one of the earliest clerks of St. Peter’s Parish. As explained in Old Historic Homes of Cheshire (1895):

It will be observed that this house faces the east instead of fronting the road. The reason given is that Mr. Badger desired his front rooms so arranged that he could from his front windows, or standing in his front door, get a view of the steeple of the Episcopal Church

The house was later owned by John Fields, whose sons Orrin and Samuel would both reside there as well.

Hebron Center School – American Legion Hall (1883)

The American Legion Hall at 18 Main Street in Hebron was built in 1883 as the town’s Center School (District No. 1). A two-room schoolhouse, it replaced an earlier one-room Center Schoolhouse that burned down in the Great Fire of 1882. Because it was the largest school in town at the time, students from one-room schoolhouses in Hebron that were closing in the 1930s were transferred to the Center School. The building was in use as a school until 1949 and then was transferred to the American Legion.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Mystic (1867)

Begun as a mission in 1859, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic was organized as a parish in 1865. That same year, the parish acquired land at what is now 15 Pearl Street for a church. The cornerstone was laid in 1866 and the first service was held on Christmas Morning, 1867. Once the church was free from its large construction debt of $9,000, the building was dedicated on St. Mark’s Day, April 25, 1873. An education wing was erected in 1962.

Leonard Silk Company Mill (1875)

The factory building at 132 Main Street at Warehouse Point, East Windsor, was built in 1875 by the Leonard Silk Company. Founded by J. N. Leonard in Rockville, the company produced thread from raw Japanese Silk. The industrial history of the site the Leonard Silk mill goes back to 1804, when Brazail Sexton started a woolen mill. The East Windsor Woolen Mill later failed and the property was acquired by Jehiel Simonds in 1870. The Leonard Silk Company became a tenant of the five-story building, along with the Barber & Chapin Silk Company. Not long after moving in, the building burned down in a dramatic fire on the evening of December 16, 1874. The fire had threatened the neighboring gas works, which were saved, preventing a disastrous explosion. Leonard’s company soon rebuilt, as reported in the Hartford Courant (under “State Correspondence”) on January 26, 1875:

It was two weeks after the fire before they concluded on their present course; and in the short time which has elapsed they have accomplished an astonishing amount of work, in the way of erecting a dye-house and fitting up new quarters with power, machinery, &c., necessary to conduct their business.

To protect against fire, the new factory utilized a sprinkler system, supplied from a water tank in the bell tower. The tower also contained a 780-pound bell, cast in 1868 in Sheffield, England. Leonard soon expanded his business, partnering with Luther J. Warren to expand the Warner silk mill at Northampton, Mass. As described in Picturesque Hampshire (1890):

Mr. Leonard came here fresh from his well known triumphs at Warehouse Point, Conn., where, as is generally known, he had the name of making a full honest weight of silk to the spool, and the very best in the market at that. Mr. Leonard has brought to Northampton the same spirit of intense application and painstaking attention which distinguished him in Connecticut

An addition to the Warehouse Point mill was constructed in 1887 and two more in the early twentieth century. The silk mill closed in 1940 and the bell was sold in 1960. Various companies have since occupied the building, most recently Keystone Paper & Box Company, Inc.