First Congregational Church of Washington (1801)

First Congregational Church of Washington, CT

The third meeting house of the First Congregational Church of Washington is located at 6 Kirby Road on Washington Green. It was built in 1801 and has a later (1910) Colonial Revival front porch. The original spire and belfry were replaced in 1845. The Ecclesiastical Society in Washington was formed in 1741. Washington was called Judea until the town was incorporated in 1779. The first meeting house was built in 1742 a little to the north of the present building. A second meeting house replaced it in 1754. It was destroyed by fire in 1800 and the current building was then erected.

Adams and Stone’s Blocks (1894)

Adams and Stone's Blocks, Main Street, Winsted

The two adjacent commercial buildings at 418-420 and 424-426 Main Street in Winsted were both built around 1894. The building on the right in the image above (No. 418, Winsted News Co.) was built by Horace O. Adams, who had his construction firm offices on an upper floor and ran a shoe store on the first floor. The building on the left (No. 424, Winsted Pawn & Jewlery) was built by Charles and Lester Stone, house painters, who had their offices in the building. Both buildings also contained residences as well as businesses.

Elijah Sherman House (1748)

Elijah Sherman House

The house at 14 Main Street South in Woodbury may have been built as early as 1748, but was possibly built c. 1796 by Elijah Sherman on land he had acquired in 1791.

Elijah Sherman (1754-1844) was born in Stratford, (or perhaps New Milford?). As related in a biography of his son, Rev. Charles Sherman, who became a Methodist minister [Vol. VII of Annals of the American Methodist Pulpit (1861), by William B. Sprague]:

Elijah Sherman, removed in early life from New Milford, his native place, to Woodbury, where he lived till January, 1844, when he died in his ninetieth year. He was a man of vigorous mind and excellent character, and was several times a member of the State Legislature. He commenced the Christian life at the age of forty, and was ever after an active and devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

He had earlier been a member of the Episcopal Church but, as described in The Town and People (1900), edited by Julia Minor Strong:

At what exact date is not positively known, but previous to 1812, Elijah Sherman, Sr., known as “Father Sherman,” became dissatisfied with the Episcopal Church, joined the Methodist denomination, and became very active and zealous in advancing its interests. In 1812 he was appointed the first regular “Class Leader,” the several ministers who had officiated here, having previously fulfilled that office. His home was the house now owned by the Methodist Society, and used as its parsonage. The exact date of its erection is lost, but the ancient grain bins and “smoke house” in the garret, attest to its great age, and it is probable that it was built previous to 1800. After his appointment as “Class Leader,” if not before, his “long kitchen” became the place for all the meetings of the Methodists, and was so used until the erection of the first Church, in 1824, on the site of the present edifice. Even after the church was built, the class and social meetings were still held at Mr. Sherman’s home, until the building of the present church, in 1840.

Elijah Sherman is further described in William Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury (1854):

The temperament of Mr. Sherman was humble, earnest, and eminently conscientious; firm in his adhesion to what he deemed to be the line of duty. He could not adopt Calvihistic opinions, then ardently pressed upon the public mind, in all the Congregational pulpits. Swayed by an enthusiastic spiritualism, his sympathies were with those humble heralds of the cross, so efficiently blessed in the morn of Methodism. For twenty years, with some few companions, himself an elder, the worshipers in this faith, assembled in his own house. His religious experiences gave him new developments in Christian duty. Chastened by the death of several children, his faith and zeal and knowledge grew deeper, more ardent and expanded. He became an eminent example of Christian excellence. Under that humble roof, from subdued and pure hearts, prayers gushed forth, not surpassed in pathos and piety by a Massillon or a Bourdaloue. Souls now looking to the great judgment seat with confidence and holy hope, recall with devout gratitude his ardent aspirations in that lowly temple. Had he received the advantages of early education and training, with the compass and melody of his voice, he would probably have made an eloquent and powerful preacher. He lived to see the erection of a Methodist church on his own homestead, and a numerous and devout company of believers worshiping there. He was gathered to his fathers at the advanced age of ninety, in the month of January, 1844.

The Methodist Church sold the house in 1937 and it has since been a private residence.

Slater House (1870)

274 Broadway, Norwich

John F. Slater (1815-1884) was a wealthy mill-owner who resided in Norwich. As related in the Memorial of John F. Slater, of Norwich, Connecticut, 1815-1884 (1885):

On the death of John Slater, May 27, 1843, his sons John F. and William S. inherited his interest in the mills at Hopeville and Jewett City, Conn., and at Slatersville, R. I., and they formed a partnership under the name of J. & W. Slater, adjusting their affairs so as to be equal partners. In March, 1845, this firm sold their Hopeville property, and in 1849 bought the interest of Samuel Slater’s heirs in the mill at Slatersville. In 1853, after the lease of this last-mentioned property to A. D. and M. B. Lockwood had expired, William S. Slater took the management of the Slatersville mill, and John F. Slater that of the Jewett City mill. The partnership of the brothers continued until Jan. 1, 1873, when it was dissolved, each taking the mill of which he had been the manager.

John F. Slater was also a principle investor in what would become the Ponemah Mills in Taftville. According to the “Walking Guide to Historic Broadway & Union Street,” the house at 274 Broadway in Norwich was built c. 1870 and in the late nineteenth century was the home of his son, William A. Slater (1857-1919). The book Norwich in the Gilded Age: The Rose City’s Millionaires’ Triangle (2014) by Patricia F. Staley, explains that the house at 274 Broadway was the home (by 1876) of Marianna Lanman Hubbard Slater (1824-1889), who married John F. Slater in 1844. (presumably she lived in the house with her husband). That book indicates that her son, William A. Slater, lived [at some point] in the Slater mansion, a now demolished house at 228 Broadway. William Slater founded the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich in honor of his father. In the 1950s, the house at 274 Broadway became the residence of the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Norwich.