Trinity Episcopal Church, Bristol (1949)

Trinity Episcopal Church

Episcopalians in Bristol separated from the dominant Congregational church in 1747. They built a church in 1754, located on the site of the later Thomas H. Patterson School (now Patterson Place Apartments). This early church closed during the Revolutionary War in the face of strong anti-Loyalist feeling. After the war, the dilapidated church was sold to be used as a barn (it later burned in a fire). A new Episcopal church, called Trinity Church, was built in 1834 on Maple Street. This building was sold and moved to Forestville to become the a Methodist Church. It was later destroyed in a fire. The next Trinity Church building was constructed on Main Street in 1862. It was moved around the corner to High Street, across from the Bristol Public Library, in 1889. When this church was destroyed by fire in 1945, Dudley S. Ingraham donated land on Summer Street–the site of a house that had been destroyed by fire–for a new Trinity Church, which was dedicated on Easter Day, 1949. The church’s rose window, facing Summer Street, was given by Ingraham in memory of his son, Dudley, Jr., who was killed in action during World War II. The church’s tower and parish house were added in 1954. At the start of the twenty-first century, Trinity Episcopal Church became one of the “Connecticut Six,” a group of Episcopal churches whose orthodox beliefs conflict with those of the state’s Episcopal hierarchy. Threatened with a lawsuit by the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, the congregation vacated the church building on Summer Street in 2008 and became Holy Trinity Anglican Church, affiliated with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a mission of the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Bristol Public Library (1906)

Bristol Public Library

The Bristol Public Library first opened in 1892 in cramped quarters in a building on Main Street. In 1896 it moved to the Charles Treadway house at the corner of Main and High Streets. On this site a new library was built in 1906 and dedicated the following year. A Colonial Revival building, it was designed by Wilson Potter of New York, who specialized in academic buildings. A Children’s Library wing and an Auditorium were later added on the north side of the building, but these were razed in 2006 for a new addition, which better reflects the original Colonial Revival architecture.

Bristol National Bank (1904)

Bristol National Bank

The Bristol National Bank, organized by John H. Sessions and Charles S. Treadway, was chartered in 1875. Sessions was president until his death in 1899 and was succeeded by Treadway, who died in 1905. The bank occupied a building on Main Street, built in 1877-1878, until a new building (245-247 Main Street), built in 1904-1905, was ready for occupancy in August, 1905. The 1878 building was then demolished, as the Hartford Courant described the plans on March 31, 1904, “so that the bank will have an open space between it and the driveway which goes to the freight depot of the “Consolidated” railroad.” As the Courant described the new building on August 3, 1905:

The bank building occupies one lot north of the old bank on Main street, which was erected in 1878. It has a liberal frontage on Main street and is two stories high. The construction is of Roman brick with white marble trimmings and in front are four large pillars. There are two floors; the first is used exclusively by the bank and the second contains the law offices of Judge Roger S. Newell, William J. Malone, the probate court rooms, and the patent law department of the New Departure Manufacturing Company, which occupies three rooms.

The building was designed by Theodore Peck and built by the Torrington Building Company. In 1922, the bank moved again, this time to a new building, located further south on Main Street.

Bristol Trust Company (1907)

Walter Percival Crabtree designed the Bristol Trust Company building, now a branch of Webster Bank, which is located at 150 Main Street, on the northeast corner of Main and Riverside Avenue in Bristol. The company was incorporated in 1907, the same year the marble Neoclassical building with monumental brass doors was built. Outside, the building was surrounded by landscaped grounds, while the interior was designed by Mortensen and Holdensen, a Boston firm that created many interiors of public buildings and theaters at the time. The bank was later expanded to the north with the addition of space for a drive-in teller window.