Smith Brothers Carriage Shop (1868)

Smith Brothers Carriage Shop

The single-story brick structure at 9 State Street in North Haven once served as the Smith Brothers carriage parts factory. The nomination document for the Pines Bridge Historic District gives the building a date of 1868, although the North Haven Historical Society website says it was built in 1846 by John F. Bronson, possibly as a match factory, and was acquired by the Smith Brothers in 1856. Because of a plaque found in the building engraved “Runaway Hole” it has been speculated that it was part of the Underground Railroad. Around the turn-of-the-century Angelo Ghiselli acquired the property, which became a restaurant. It was next used as apartments and is now a private residence.

Colony Building (1922)

Colony Building, Meriden

Built in 1922 on the site where a train station had once stood for 28 years in Meriden, the Colony Building (39-49 Colony Street) is a Neoclassical Revival-style structure. The original occupants of the building included Emerson & Whitney Shoe Co. and Jepson’s Book Store. The latter store later moved to 31 Colony Street. It had been founded in 1910 by Louise J. Jepson and was later run by George S. Jepson and Mildred Jepson.

Sheldon Building & Fagan’s Block (1868)

Sheldon & Fagan Buildings, Middletown

Pictured above are two buildings on Main Street in Middletown that are joined together with a bracketed cornice. The one on the right, 420 Main Street, was built between 1867 and 1868 by Ephraim Sheldon, who had his furniture store in the building until 1892. The building was modernized c. 1895 with a Pompeian brick facade and brownstone window surrounds. Probably around that same time the cornice of the adjacent Fagan Building was extended across the Sheldon Building. Fagan’s Block, at 422 Main Street, was built in 1868 by Patrick Fagan. After his death in 1869, his sons continued their father’s real estate business with an office in the building. They added an addition on the north side that was demolished in the late 1930s to make way for the Woolworth Building.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Norwalk (1930)

St Paul's Episcopal Church

The Episcopal parish of St. Paul’s in Norwalk was founded in 1737. As described in Norwalk After Two Hundred & Fifty Years (1901):

This is the second oldest ecclesiastical organization in Norwalk. As early as 1729 there appears to have been desultory Episcopal services holden in Norwalk. Rev. Henry Caner of Fairfield, was probably the first clergyman known to have here officiated. His incumbency dates from 1737, at which period the worship of the Episcopal church seems to have been celebrated in a small and temporary frame structure which stood on the extreme northeasterly portion of the present St. Paul’s grounds on Newtown avenue. This structure seems to have served the parish purpose until 1742, when the building, afterward destroyed by Tryon, was erected. [. . .]

A new church edifice rose over the ashes of the temple burned in 1779, which building stood until 1840

That third church building was replaced by a frame Carpenter Gothic structure that stood until it was torn down and replaced by the current church on Norwalk Green. The cornerstone was laid on November 12, 1927 and the church was consecrated on June 9, 1930. Visitors reach the church through its ancient burial ground (see photo) from St. Paul’s Place, a short street along the northern boundary of the Green. (more…)