The house at 60 Church Lane in Westport was built c. 1889-1890. It was the home of William Sturges and in 1917 was listed as the home of Frank Sturges, a mill employee. It was later home to the Fable family until it was sold to the Westport Chamber of Commerce in 1999. The building was restored and won a Preservation Award in 2004 from the Westport Historical Society.
The Glastonbury Knitting Company (begun as the Glastenbury Knitting Company in 1855) later expanded to Manchester with a mill at Manchester Green. A mill was first built on the site in 1851 and rebuilt after a fire in 1861. The mill produced men’s long woolen underwear. An interesting item that appeared in the September 2, 1911 issue of Fibre and Fabric: The American Textile Trade Review (Vol. 54, No. 1382) stated that:
The Glastonbury Knitting Co. shut down their mill at the Green last Saturday for a week. So many of the employees desired a vacation that the managers decided to shut down. The company is fairly busy, and at the present time gives employment to about 70 hands.
The mill was expanded over the years (did it reach its current form in 1901?), but closed in the 1920s (although the company’s mill in Glastonbury was in operation until 1936). Since that time the old mill building (501 Middle Turnpike East) has been used as an antique store, drug store, bar, a printer’s shop, a shoe store, a warehouse, a bookshop and two different furniture stores. (more…)
The Glastenbury Knitting Company (which, like the town where it was founded, later changed the spelling of its name to “Glastonbury“) was founded in 1855 by Addison L. Clark. The company produced men’s wool underwear (long johns, called “union suits” during the Civil War), reaching its peak during World War I when it produced 400,000 pairs for the U.S. army. Having acquired the Eagle Manufacturing Company woolen mills in Glastonbury 1855, the company built its first mill (c. 1860), just upstream on Salmon Brook, at the outlet to a small mill pond called Addison Pond. A fire in 1892 destroyed part of the mill, but Clark soon rebuilt and in 1897, a year after his death, the surrounding mill village of Eagleville was renamed Addison in his honor. The mill itself was expanded over the years, until about 1910. The company went out of business in 1936, during the Great Depression. The old mill was later used as a warehouse, but in 2005 it was acquired by developers who have converted it into upscale apartments under the name Addison Mill Apartments. The developers recreated a tower, destroyed by fire in the late 1930s, that had stood at the building’s western end. The new tower serves as a stairwell. (more…)
Between about 1868 and his death in 1900, Dr. Robert A. Manwaring had practiced medicine in a house in New London where the building at 225-237 State Street now stands. The building was constructed in 1913 as the result of a bequest by the doctor’s son, Wolcott B. Manwaring (to support a memorial children’s hospital). Designed by Dudley St. Clair Donnelly, the Manwaring Building has housed many businesses over the years. (more…)
Jared Cone Sr. (1733-1807) of Bolton married Christiana Loomis on September 19, 1754. He purchased the Loomis farm in Bolton by 1768. Jared Cone and his son, Jared Cone, Jr., both served in the Revolutionary War. The father marched with the militia from Bolton to the Lexington Alarm in 1775 and the son was at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. Jared Cone, Jr. married Elisabeth Wells of Wethersfield in 1784. He acquired his father’s farm in 1790 and ten years later built a Federal-style house at what is now 25 Hebron Road. The house‘s rear ell appears to be much earlier, dating perhaps to c. 1755. Cone could only afford to live in the grand house for four years, eventually selling it and moving away (he died in New Hampshire). For about eight years the house was a bed and breakfast until it closed in 2003.
According to the barn survey information at Historic Barns of Connecticut, the barn at 41 Hebron Road in Andover dates to 1780. An English side-entry barn, it was moved to its current address from further up the road. Its owner dismantled and rebuilt it in 1998 to reflect its original period. The nomination for the Andover Center Historic District dates the barn to c. 1850. The barn is associated with the Phelps-Bingham House, a colonial house across the street.
The Bolton United Methodist Church is located at 1041 Boston Turnpike in the Quarryville section of Bolton. The church’s history is described in A Historical Sketch of Bolton, Connecticut (1920), by Samuel Morgan Alvord:
The Methodist Church began its work at an early date in Bolton with the first camp meeting ever held in a New England town. The noted itinerant preacher Lorenzo Dow was the leader and great crowds were attracted to his meetings which were held May 30 to June 3, 1805, near the Andover town line directly east of the South District School house. Rev. Mr. [George] Colton [of the Bolton Congregational Church] was deeply offended at this encroachment upon his rights. Camp meetings were held later near camp meeting spring on the South Manchester road.
The first Methodist Church was built at Ouarryville in 1834 near the present edifice. This building was sold to the Universalists in 1851 and moved some distance west and a new church was built the following year. Joseph Ireson was the first pastor in 1823.
A brief history of the “M.E. Church, Quarryville, Connecticut,” by Edgar A. Brownell appears in the Souvenir History of the New England Southern Conference in Three Volumes (1897). As Brownell describes:
Methodist meetings were first held in 1823, at the house of Isaac Keeney, and in pleasant weather were held under the shade of trees in the vicinity of what is known as Quarryville, sometimes under a large elm tree, near the late Isaac Keeney’s residence.
The first meeting-house was built in 1834, and stood near the site of the present one. and was sold to the Universalist Societv in 1851-2, and removed about eighty rods west. The present meeting-house was built in 1852, and cost between $3,000 and $4,000, and has never been without a minister and a fair congregation.
Some years since the Rev. James S. Thomas, then stationed here, thought the society needed a church bell and a barn. He procured the same, and then set at work to pay for them. During his pastorate here special services were held and a great revival took place, “and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,” many of whom are at present members in the church.
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