First Baptist Church of Willimantic (1858)

first-baptist-church

The First Baptist Church of Willimantic is located at 667 Main Street. As related in Bayles’ History of Windham County, Connecticut (1889):

The church was organized October 20th, 1827. At first the school houses were used for meetings, but a spirit of opposition arose and they were debarred this privilege. With aid from abroad they succeeded in building a meeting house on the site at present occupied. The site was purchased of Alfred Howes, and Messrs. Reed, Hardin and Fenton, of Mansfield, were contracted with to erect the church. The building, being completed, was dedicated May 27th, 1829. A Sabbath school was immediately organized. [. . .] The church is a neat and commodious building, which, with the lot it stands upon, is valued at twenty-five thousand dollars. Connected with the church is a vigorous Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor and a large and flourishing Sunday school.

The 1827 edifice was replaced with the current church building in 1858. As related on the church’s website:

In 1968, the First Baptist Church of Willimantic had an opportunity to sell its building after the Valentine’s Day Fire destroyed the 1865 Union Block. The declining church voted not to sell and to remain a downtown church, which is where it still stands. In 2002, First Baptist voted not to close its doors and instead chose to celebrate its 175th anniversary.

Davidson Carriage Barn (1885)

Carriage Barn

At 254 Carrington Road, across from the Davidson House, 539 Litchfield Turnpike, in Bethany is the a historic carriage barn. It was erected c. 1885, a few years after S. G. Davidson built the farmhouse. According to local tradition, the barn was used for blacksmithing. It may also have housed equipment used by the Davidson Telephone Exchange System. This company, run by S. G. Davidson’s son, Tyler D. Davidson, installed five phone lines in Bethany between 1898 and 1903. Phone installation was free, but subscribers paid a $12 yearly rental fee. The Southern New England Telephone Company took over the system in 1907.

S. G. Davidson House (1882)

Davidson House, Bethany

The older rear section of the house at 539 Litchfield Turnpike, intersection with Carrington Road, in Bethany was built by James Seymour Tuttle, a blacksmith and axe-maker. Tuttle’s grandson, Samuel Gilbert Davidson, hired joiner Thomas H. Brooks to built the front section, erected in 1882-1883. There are also historic barns attached to the rear of the house and a carriage barn across the road. The farm run by Davidson, also called Minnow Brook Farm, is described by an admirer in Bethany and its Hills (1905):

And now, concluded Mr. Sperry, we come to a model farm, one of the model farms of Connecticut, that of our friend S. G. Davidson, who is one of Bethany’s most honored and esteemed men. It is indeed a model of what thrift, good taste, enterprise, foresight and sagacity well employed can accomplish. With Mr. Davidson in charge, even a wilderness could be made to blossom like the rose.

There Davidson’s son, Tyler D. Davidson (d. 1952), a farmer like his father and a teacher, also served as First Selectman, Justice of the Peace and was a member of the Connecticut state House of Representatives. In the 1930s the house became the “Old Elm Tea Room,” named for a large Elm in front of the house planted by S. G. Davidson. An upstairs room was also used for singing classes held by some of the women of the family.

Tyler Davidson’s daughters sold the house out of the family in 1957.

Tremko-Stebbins House (1773)

Temko-Stebbins House

The house on the right in the picture above is the Tremko-Stebbins House, located on Route 44 in the Warrenville section of Ashford. The building on the left is a former Post Office. The house was built c. 1773 by Thomas Stebbins Sr., who bought 1/4 of an acre from Benjamin Clark. The last owner of the house was George T. Tremko, who bought it in 1946 from Abbie M. Balch (she served on the Ashford Board of School Visitors, to which she was elected in 1898). It was known as the post-master’s house because the Tremko’s were involved with the post office next door. The Town of Ashford bought the house via eminent domain in 1987 and there were plans to take it down and build a new library on the premises. The Ashford Historical Society helped to save the house and to acquire a grant to rehabilitate its exterior (this work was completed in 2014-2015). The town is waiting for another grant to rehabilitate the interior of the house, after which it can be used as a Museum and Tourist Information Center.

Thanks to Joan E. Bowley, Pres. of the AHS, for information on the house.

Elijah Sherman House (1791)

50 Main St S., Woodbury

Not to be confused with another nearby Elijah Sherman House, the house at 50 Main Street South in Woodbury was erected by Deacon Elijah Sherman on land owned by Lee and Timothy Terrell. As related in the c. 1900 book Woodbury and the Colonial Homes:

The Sherman place is now occupied by Chas. Roswell, and the stone door step still bears the date May 19, 1791 A. D., chiseled on it. In the basement of this house, a tannery was located, later being moved across the street.

The house has been home to the Newell family since 1918.

Rev. Samuel Clark House (1759)

Rev. Samuel Clark House

Reverend Samuel Clark (1729-1778), a Princeton graduate, was ordained in the Kensington Congregational Church in Berlin 1756 and then served as its minister until his death twenty-two years later. He built the grand house at 67 Burnham Street, one of the earliest brick residences in Connecticut, in 1759, but did not marry until 1766, when he wed Jerusha White. The latter part of his pastorate was contentious and the congregation split into separate societies in 1772. In 1773, Rev. Clark entered into a financially unsuccessful partnership, ending in a quarrel, with merchant Jonathan Hart. At the time of his death the Revolutionary War was underway and Rev. Clark was facing dismissal from his pastorate for suspected Tory sympathies. His house was next occupied by Rev. Benoni Upson, who succeeded him as minister. The Upson family lived in the house into the twentieth century. The house has a white-painted twentieth-century addition to the left of its front facade.