African-Americans in Ansonia established Macedonia Baptist Church in 1890 and two years later constructed a church building at 24 Clifton Avenue. When local roads were later rearranged, the church received a new address of 243 Pershing Drive.
The farmhouse at 215 Nod Road in Avon was built c. 1850 by Chester Randolph Woodford (1814-1921), a dairy and tobacco farmer who lived to the age of 107. As a young man he was a clock salesman who once employed the services of a future president, as described in his obituary in The Jewelers’ Circular (Vol. LXXXIII, No. 20, December 14, 1921):
For several years Mr. Woodford traveled through New York, New Jersey and Maryland as collector and salesman for a clock manufacturing company and became thoroughly experienced in this line. In 1838 he went to Illinois, where he became associated with his uncle, Joseph Bishop, in the clock business. While successfully engaged at this work, Mr. Woodford was accused in selling clocks in the State of Illinois without a license. The matter was brought to court and Mr. Woodford engaged Abraham Lincoln to defend him. It was maintained at the trial that the clocks were manufactured in the State and it was therefore unnecessary to secure a license, and on this defense the case was won by Woodford and his counsel. It was while traveling in this State that Mr. Woodford stopped at a tavern where several men were discussing a name for a new county. Mr. Woodford told them that they had better name it after him and they did. In 1841, he returned to his native town.
He was a member of the East Avon Congregational church, president of the Avon Creamery, and a member of the General Assembly from Avon in 1858, having been the oldest living former member. When Mr. Woodford was 105 years of age a loving cup was presented to him by the members of the General Assembly in behalf of the State. Mr. Woodford was a republican in politics and he cast his first vote for president for Martin Van Buren. He had served in his home town as selectman, tax collector, assessor and justice of the peace.
Woodford was the first farmer in Avon to grow tobacco. He started with broadleaf for cigar wrappers and, with his son Prescott, began to grow shade tobacco in 1905. Tobacco was grown by the family into the 1980s. The farm, now called the Pickin’ Patch, then switched to growing vegetables and berries, but the property still has a number of historic tobacco sheds.
The building at 945 Main Street in Manchester was built in 1909 to replace the Oak Hill Building that had stood on the site but was destroyed in a fire in 1909. Since 1897, that building had contained the dry goods store of Edwin E. House and Justus W. Hale, who quickly hired architect Isaac A. Allen, Jr. to design a replacement structure. The new House & Hale Building would be larger than its predecessor and a two-story wooden building (could it be this one?), next to the adjacent Cheney Block, was moved to the rear to make way for the structure. House & Hale, who had begun with two separate stores (begun in 1853 and 1875 respectively), soon evolved their joint businesses into a full department store which, by 1920, also had a self-serve grocery store in the basement. The department store was in business until January, 1980. The building was then converted into rental office space and is now called “One Heritage Place.”
In 1917 Italian immigrants working at the Ensign-Bickford factory and on farms in Avon and surrounding towns formed a social club called the Prince Thomas of Savoy Society. It was named for Prince Tommaso of Savoy, Second Duke of Genoa. During World War One, Prince Thomas was appointed Luogotenente, or lieutenant general, by Victor Emanuel III and served as the king’s second-in-command. Established as a mutual aid society, the Society’s meetings were held in members’ homes and other rented spaces until the group erected the building at 32 Old Farms Road in Avon in 1930-1932. Many Italian immigrants were involved in the building trades and used their expertise to build the clubhouse. Each member of the Society was required to contribute a certain number of hours each week until the project was completed. The clubhouse was officially dedicated in 1932.
A German immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1874, Bernard C. Apel established a furniture and undertaking business at Depot Square in North Manchester. In 1888 he erected the large brick commercial building that stands at the corner of Apel Place and Oakland Street (35 Oakland Street). The basement contained the undertaking establishment and above it was his mercantile showroom, which he had expanded to include a wide variety of products, from carpets, wall paper and curtains, to crockery, lamps, clocks, stoves and pianos. The upper floors of the building housed a large community hall/theater called Apel’s Opera House. A fire gutted the opera house in 1899. Apel rebuilt, but did not reconstruct the original audience gallery. Serving as a warehouse and salesroom in later years, the building was acquired by the Central Connecticut Cooperative Farmers Association in 1977. The Co-op, which had been located on Apel Place since 1942, was a major supplier of livestock feed to farmers and had a retail store and farm stand in the former Opera House. The Co-op closed in the summer of 2016 due to current economic conditions and the decline in the number of farms.
The earliest residents of the hip-roofed brick Federal-style house at 2 Washington Avenue – 1 St. John Street in North Haven are not known. Much altered over the years, the house was built c. 1825 on the site where the c. 1680 homestead of Nathaniel Thorpe once stood. In the later nineteenth century the house was the residence of Rev. William T. Reynolds, who was pastor of the North Haven Congregational Church from 1863 to 1893. The house is now an office property.
The summer cottage at 10 Linden Point Road in the Stony Creek section of Branford was built c. 1870-1890. It was renovated and expanded in recent years.
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