The Queen Anne/Shingle style house at 220 Summer Street in Bristol was built in 1890 (as displayed on the side chimney). It was the home of Epaphroditus Peck (1860-1938), a lawyer who served as an associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Hartford County, 1897-1912, an instructor at Yale Law School, 1903-1913, and a Representative in the state legislature, 1925-1935. He was a founder of the Bristol Public Library in 1891 and wrote A History of Bristol, published in 1932.
At 116-122 High Street in Bristol, dating to c. 1880, is one of the oldest apartment blocks in the city. An excellent example of Italianate architecture, it is (unusually for a building of its size) of wood frame construction. The 12-unit building was condemned by the City of Bristol in 2015 and the tenants were forced to move out. The property owner was then arrested for reckless endangerment and property maintenance code violations. A new manager later took over the property.
Near the intersection of Rimmon Hill Road and 10 Pines Bridge Road in Beacon Falls is a one-room school house traditionally believed to have been built in 1779, when Beacon Falls was part of Derby. It is more likely that the Rimmon School House was one of six built in 1830, when Beacon Falls was part of the town of Oxford. The school was in use until 1953, when Laurel Ledge Elementary School opened. For 24 years the former school was owned by Raymond Lafferty, who had been in the last class at the Rimmon School before moving to Laurel Ledge in forth grade. His father had purchased it not long after the school closed and used it for storage. Raymond Lafferty had an antiques shop in the building, which he sold in 2010. The new owners wanted to sell the building to the town, but the town could not afford it.
The John Wesley Pentecostal Church was founded in Manchester in 1897. In the fall of 1907 (“Holiness Meeting in Manchester; In Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene,” Hartford Courant, April 10, 1908) the church became part of the Church of the Nazarene, a national evangelical denomination that formed in 1907-1908 through a series of mergers between various holiness churches and denominations, with the western-based Church of the Nazarene merging with the eastern-based Association of Pentecostal Churches of America. In 1958, the Manchester Church of the Nazarene moved from their original 1898 church at 466 Main Street to a new church at 236 Main Street. It was the culmination of a five-year building plan that included construction of a youth center (1954) and a parsonage (1957). The church’s pastor, Clarence E. Winslow, designed the buildings and prepared landscaping plans, personally clearing the land with the help of volunteers. Groundbreaking for the church occurred in the summer of 1957 and the following April (“Steeplejack Chore Planned by Pastor,” Hartford Courant, April 21, 1958) Rev. Winslow was lifted 90 feet by a giant crane to place a cross on the newly raised steeple. Rev. Winslow later moved to Florida where, in the 1970s, he led supporters of Creationism against the teaching of Evolution in Florida schools.
The Church of the Nazarene opened the Cornerstone Christian School in 1981. A new church building was erected at 218 Main Street in 1989, with Rev. Phillip Chatto this time attaching the cross at the top of the steeple (“Crowning touch installed at Manchester church,” by Randy Burgess, Hartford Courant, March 29, 1989). The previous church, now called the McLain Building, became part of the Cornerstone Christian School, housing the junior and senior high schools, and the former sanctuary was converted into a fellowship hall and gymnasium.
The building at 15 Center Street in Andover, built c. 1860, was originally the house and store of Jasper A. Fitch. Fitch’s father was a shoemaker, so he may have apprenticed to his uncle, William (or was it Henry?), a merchant in Hebron. Frederick A. Sackett, who came to Andover from Rhode Island, was a later storekeeper. F. A. Sackett also served as town clerk, treasurer and judge of the Andover Probate District. In 1938 the Andover Volunteer Fire Department was formed and the town acquired the Sackett store, which was remodeled to become a fire house. A third bay for vehicles was added to the existing two in 1955. Another bay was added in 1982. The Fire Department later moved to Andover’s new Public Safety Complex.
The Cole family once had an extensive farm in Berlin around the area where the house at 98 Norton Road stands today. The house was possibly built as early as 1785, but it was extensively remodeled and “Victorianized” a century later by Edward A. Cole.
Benjamin Smith, a descendant of early settlers of Haddam, erected the house at 432 Candlewood Hill Road in 1807, the year he married Lydia Burr, daughter of Captain Jonathan Burr. Their son Benjamin W. Smith inherited the house in 1833. He left Haddam in 1856 and sold the house to the Skinner family. The house once had a central chimney that was removed about 1904.
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