Congregation Beth El in Norwalk was founded in 1934 as a Jewish Conservative Congregation. A religious school was established in 1938. The Congregation met at the Norwalk Jewish Center until constructing their own building at 109 East Avenue. Ground was broken for the new building on May 9, 1948 and the first two wings, for the school and an auditorium, were dedicated a year later. In 1954 the Sanctuary was completed.
In 1906, Louis Howe (1870-1968) leased the feldspar quarry and mill on Roaring Brook in South Glastonbury and made it the largest feldspar supplier in Connecticut, producing 65,000-70,000 tons of the mineral between 1906 and 1928, when the quarry became inactive. Howe was also a merchant and owned a water company that supplied South Glastonbury from his reservoir on Evergreen Lane near Chestnut Hill. Louis W. Howe also served in the state legislature. The Colonial Revival house at 1062 Main Street in Glastonbury was built for him in 1908.
The sign on the house at 55 Good Hill Road in Woodbury displays a date of 1685. That was the year Thomas Drakeley, Sr came to Woodbury. He gave one third of his property to his son, Thomas in 1725 and the house was probably built circa 1725-1730. The Drakeley family owned the house until 1918. The West Side School house once stood across from the Drakeley House. It is said that the school had no water so that the children had to use the Drakeleys’ well.
The J. Hebbard House in Windham Center is notable for its Late Georgian/Federal front door with fan light. Located at 11 Windham Green Road, the house was built c. 1783. It is also known as the Dr. Guild House. This is most likely Dr. Frank E. Guild, who is described in A Modern History of Windham County, Connecticut, Vol. II (1920):
Dr. Frank E. Guild was born in Thompson, August 14, 1853, son of Rev. John Burleigh Guild and Julia Ann Griggs. His father was a Baptist clergyman who preached at Clinton, Packerville and Thompson, in Connecticut. His son was graduated at State Normal School at New Britain in 1874, and from Long Island College Hospital in 1885, teaching school in the interim as a means to a professional education. Doctor Guild began medical practice in Windham, Conn., in October, 1886, and has continued there since, with oflices also at Willimantic. Has been president of Windham County Medical Society, vice president of the state society; member of town school board of Windham thirty years and chairman of the board for the past fifteen years. He was married April 28, 1887, to Harriet Clark, daughter of Edgar Clark of Putnam, who was a civil engineer and employed in surveying the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad. Doctor and Mrs. Guild are, respectively, S. A. R. and D. A. R. members, and Mrs. Gui1d’s grandmother was a real daughter. They have three children, Alan Clark, Harriet Griggs, and Julia Exton Guild.
Dr. Guild’s daughter, Dr. Harriet G Guild, became an authority on children’s kidney disease at Johns Hopkins and was the founder of the Kidney Foundation of Maryland.
At 3237 Bronson Road in the Greenfield Hill section of Fairfield is a Colonial Revival house built in 1882. It was once the home of Isaac Milbank, a gunsmith, who had his brick workshop behind the house. Later purchased by the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church for use as a school, the house has been much altered and an addition was built in 2012.
The substantial house at 93 Broad Street in East Hartford was built by Capt. John Kentfield (1743-1804) between 1784 and 1792. He had earlier built the house at 119 Naubuc Avenue, not far away. A later owner of the house on Broad Street was Josiah White, from Gildersleeve in Portland. Josiah married Rebecca Hills of East Hartford; his brother George and cousin Daniel married two of Rebecca’s sisters. Josiah White moved to Oneida County, New York in 1812.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Parish in Northford was first organized in 1763 and their first church was consecrated by Bishop Thomas Church Brownell in 1822. A new edifice was built in 1845 and the original building was sold and probably used as a hay barn. The second church burned in 1938. Ground was broken for a new church on October 1, 1939 and the building was dedicated on November 10, 1940. The new building, at the same location as its predecessor (1382 Middletown Avenue) was designed by Alfred W. Boylen of New Haven to resemble the 1845 church, with a simple Gothic interior. The present rectory was built in 1957 and the parish house in 1965.
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