Living Proof Church (1848)

A Baptist church was established in Ashford in the village of Westford in 1780. In 1848 a new church was built in Warrenville section of town, as Richard M. Bayles describes in his History of Windham County, Connecticut (1889):

John Warren, Esq., manifested much anxiety to have a Baptist church organized in the western part of Ashford, in a village on the turnpike from Hartford to Boston and Providence. The First, or as it was often called, the Knowlton meeting house, was not considered so central, nor easy of access as many thought desirable. But the people in the vicinity of the old church were greatly opposed to giving up worship in their sanctuary, and continued for a time to worship there after another congregation was formed in “Pompey Hollow,” as the place was then called. Mr. Warren offered a fund to support worship in the Hollow, and the name of the village was changed to Warrenville. A church was organized January 22d, 1848[.]

The meeting house was completed that same year (1848). Later called the United Baptist Church, it is now known as Living Proof Church.

Samuel North House (1707)

The house at 221 South Road in Farmington was built by Samuel North (1671-1707), a merchant, sometime after he acquired the lot in 1701 and before his death, in Boston, in 1707. The year before he had willed the house and farm to his then one-year-old nephew, Josiah North (1705-1777), who later sold it to his younger brother Samuel (1708-1796) in 1736/7. This younger Samuel‘s house eventually passed to his son, Samuel North, Jr. (1740-1806), and then to Samuel, Jr.’s son Linus North (1774-1828). The property was sold out of the North family in 1829 and has passed through various owners. Alterations were made to the house in the mid-nineteenth century. The farm continued in operation until 1947. Much of the surrounding land has since been altered by the construction of Interstate 84 and residential development, but the house still has a prominent location on an elevated site with views of the Hartford skyline.

Melrose School (1850)

About 1850 the town of East Windsor organized its schools into twelve districts. The 7th District School in the village of Melrose was built around that time and remained in use as a school until 1938. The Melrose Library was also located here from its founding in the 1930s until it closed in 1950. After that the building, located at 195 Melrose Road, was used by local community groups as a meeting place. In more recent years it was restored by the Melrose School Restoration Committee. The building’s Neoclassical front portico is a later addition that fits in well with the school’s Greek Revival architecture.

Jonathan S. Wilcox House (1830)

Housed at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan are the diaries of Jonathan Samuel Wilcox (1791-1875), a Madison storekeeper. Covering nearly thirty years (1844-1875), the diaries document Wilcox’s business and religious activities (he describes his church attendance and evaluates the sermons he heard there, sometimes after attending three sermons at three different churches on the same day), as well as his political involvement. A staunch Democrat, Wilcox was hostile to abolitionists and opposed the Civil War. Several of his children and other relatives lived in Augusta, Georgia (collections of family letters are held by libraries at Yale and the University of Georgia. Wilcox’s own house, built in the Federal-style in 1830, is located at 558 Boston Post Road across from the Green in Madison.

Seymour Post Office (1916)

Occupying a dramatic site at the corner of Main and Deforest Streets in downtown Seymour is a Neoclassical-style U.S. Post Office (address at 91 Main Street) built in 1916. It is one of the many architecturally impressive post offices and other federal buildings built across the country under the supervision of James A. Wetmore, who served as Acting Supervising Architect of the United States from 1915 to 1933.