Choate Rosemary Hall: Seymour St. John Chapel (1924)

On the campus of Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford is the Seymour St. John Chapel, built in 1924. Designed by noted collegiate and ecclesiastical architect Ralph Adams Cram, it was originally named St. Andrew Chapel. In 1998, it was renamed in honor of Rev. Seymour St. John (1912-2006), who served as the school’s headmaster from 1947 to 1973. Over a decade ago the Chapel underwent a major renovation. In addition to repairs and updates to the building, the clock tower’s 10-bell Meneely Bell Co. Chime was also extensively restored and reconnected to the Chapel’s original Seth Thomas clock.

American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailor’s Reading Room (1841)

One of the buildings at Mystic Seaport is set up to represent the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailor’s Reading Room. The Society was incorporated in 1833 to provide moral and religious alternatives to the saloons, boardinghouses and brothels frequented by sailors while in port. The organization is best known for the libraries it placed aboard American ships for the use of sailors. The Society’s records are now held the Collections Research Center at Mystic Seaport. This historic organization is interpreted for Mystic Seaport visitors in a building erected c. 1841 as a work shop and tool shed by Clark Greenman of the George Greenman & Co. Shipyard. Starting in 1951, it was used as the Seaport’s Children’s museum, before housing the Reading Room exhibit. The building originally stood where the Treworgy Planetarium was built in 1960. It was moved to its current location in 1959. (more…)

Wallingford Grange Hall (1933)

In 1885, William Ellsworth Hall, a pioneering orchard-owner in Wallingford, together with thirty-one others, established Wallingford Grange No. 33. Hall was called “The Father of the Wallingford Grange” in a letter of sympathy from the Grange to his family after his death in 1920. Wallingford’s Grange Hall was built at 586 Center Street in 1933 and is still used for Grange meetings twice a month.

Enoch Burrows House (1791)

Born in Groton, Enoch Burrows (1770-1852) was a merchant who was part-owner of a shipyard on the east bank of the Mystic River. He served as a selectman in Stonington and in the Connecticut General Assembly. In 1791, Enoch Burrows married Esther Denison at the Denison Homestead called Pequotsepos. The couple moved into a new house, located at 24 Main Street in Old Mystic. As related by Grace Denison Wheeler in The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn. (1903):

The long flight of marble steps which leads up to the front door came from Mr. Burrows marble quarry, located in western Massachusetts near Pittsfield. From the same quarry was brought the marble to build the new City Hall in Philadelphia, which occupies four blocks. The house also contains a marble sink and a large stirring dish, all from the same quarry, which was brought down the Connecticut river in some kind of a water craft, and landed at the dock before the door. Mr. Burrows was a large landholder, owning many beautiful farms and Mystic Island, originally called Ram’s Island. He married Esther Denison, daughter of Grandmother Jane; she was a very energetic woman, a housekeeper and homemaker of New England’s best type, large-hearted, generous, sociable and entertaining, an excellent cook, and gave much attention to all appetizing things which please the eye and appeal to the palate. She had a good force of domestics to execute her commands, and when her table was seen covered with china, glass and silver, and loaded with choice viands, one needed no second invitation to partake of her hospitality. Her husband was a man of commanding figure, six feet two inches in his stockings; genial, kind-hearted and capable, and in his later years, in his home in West Troy, New York, was called Judge Burrows. Their son, Silas, afterwards lived here; he was interested in shipbuilding, and engaged in commercial pursuits in New York, and was also in the whaling and sealing business. He made several visits to Brazil and Hong Kong, China, where he established a commercial house; he left there in 1859 for the last time and made his home in this village, where he died in 1870. His children occupied the house as a summer home at various times, and it now belongs to his grandchildren.

Later used as a nursing home, the house is once again a private residence.

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