Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Clinton AME Zion Church (1950)

Clinton AME Zion Church in Ansonia was originally organized in Derby in 1874/1875. Early meetings were held in a hall over J. P. Swift’s Store, later Pucella’s Garage, at the corner of New Haven Avenue and Gilbert Street in Derby. The church affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1882 and adopted the name its pastor, Rev. J. J. Clinton, in 1888, incorporating as Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church. A new church building was erected on Derby Avenue, but the church later decided to relocate to Ansonia, which had a growing African American population. According to Ansonia assessor’s information, the new church, located at 96 Central Street, was built in 1950. The church had to be repaired after it was damaged in the flood of 1956 (see “$5,800 Spells Restored Hopes For Flood-Hit Ansonia Church,” Hartford Courant, February 4, 1956).

Judea Parish House (1874)

On Washington Green is the H-shaped parish house of the First Congregational Church of Washington. It was erected in 1874 and was originally called The Hall on the Green. Owned by the Washington Hall and Conference Room Association, it served as a meeting hall, chapel and library. In 1927 it was deeded to the church and extensively remodeled. It was dedicated on June 21, 1929 and called the Judea Parish House after the original name of Washington’s church: the Parish of Judea.

The Old Manse, Willington (1728)

The house at 4 Jared Sparks Road in Willington, built before 1739 (a twentieth-century owner determined a date of 1728), has been designated as the town’s oldest house. It may have been built by John Watson, one of the town’s original proprietors who owned the property in 1727. It later served as the Congregational Church parsonage until 1911.

Amasa Reed House (1805)

The house at 108 Tolland Turnpike in Willington was most likely erected c. 1805-1806 by Amasa Reed. It was later owned by the stockholders of the Willington Glass Factory, erected across the street in 1815. William Shaffer, a glassblower, bought the house in 1825 and resided there until his death in 1899.

Willimantic Camp Meeting Association (1860-1948)

Camp meetings were a notable feature of religious life in nineteenth-century America and some continue in existence today. This site has already featured the Plainville Campground and Camp Bethel in Haddam. Another religious campground is the Willimantic Camp Meeting Association. It was established by Methodists who held the first meeting here on September 3, 1860. Today it is an interdenominational Evangelical Association. At its height the camp had 300 buildings, primarily cottages built by individual churches or families. A third of them were destroyed by the hurricane of 1938 and another hundred were lost to neglect over the ensuing decades. 100 cottages remain and constitute an architectural treasure. (more…)

Samuel and Thomas Scranton (1787)

The house at 107 State Street in Guilford was built in 1787 in the Federal style and has a later Greek Revival entryway. The house was built by two brothers, Samuel and Thomas Scranton, who were both farmers. It would become home to the brothers, their wives and their combined total of nine surviving children. It was inherited by Thomas Scranton, Jr.

C. B. Bradley House (1740)

The house at 62 Cook Hill Road in Cheshire was built c. 1740, with a wing added in the twentieth century. The house is called “The C.B. Bradley House” in Edwin R. Brown’s Old Historic Homes of Cheshire (1895). Brown writes:

This house was built by Moses Bradley, and is about 140 years old. Here, Oliver, a son, Columbus, a grandson, and Charles B., a great-grandson, resided. In this house, Stephen Rowe Bradley, a son of Moses, was born Oct. 20, 1754, and here he spent his youthful days. As a boy, he was full of mischief, and seemed naturally inclined to play tricks on others. On the turnpike, but a few rods across the lot, Moses Peck lived, in an old-fashioned, lean-tn house. One night, when the family was absent, young Bradley selected this place for one of his exploits.

Inducing other boys to join him, he took the owner’s cart, which was left in the yard, near the house, separated the parts, and, as the back roof reached to within a few feet of the ground, with the aid of ropes, he drew up to the top of the roof, first, the neap and axle, and then, in the same manner, the wheels, and then the body. These separate parts were all put together on the top of the roof, one wheel being stationed on the west roof, and the other on the east, the neap resting on the ridge boards. They then drew up in baskets a sufficient quantity of wood to fill the body of the cart. So that an ox-cart, literally filled with wood, was plainly visible on the top of this house the next morning.

The owner, Mr. Peck, upon his return home, missing his woodpile and seeing other evidence of mischief, made inquiries of his neighbors, who called his attention to the exhibition on the housetop. Mr. Peck at once exclaimed, “Those cussed boys! I’ll fix ’em! I know very well who done it.” Stephen was watching the proceedings from a window in his father’s house with evident delight. This element of mischief seemed to grow as the years increased, and his father came to the conclusion that he could do nothing with him at home, so he decided to send him to Yale College. He at once commenced his preparatory studies under the instruction of the Reverend John Foote. He entered Yale College in the year 1772. As a student at Yale, the elements of sport and mischief in his nature did not lie dormant, but were manifested on several occasions, of which we have record and which evince his natural shrewdness.

[. . .]

Stephen Rowe Bradley graduated at Yale, in the year 1775, with honors. He afterward settled in Vermont, and became one of the most popular men of that State. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1802, and continued a member for 16 years. He was prseident [sic] of this body in 1802, in 1803 in place of Aaron Burr, and in 1808 and 1809 in place of George Clinton. He died at Walpole, N. H., in 1830. aged 75 years.

A remarkable career! Youthful activity, finding expression in mischief, as a boy, became the source of energy and power in mature life.