Worthington Meetinghouse (1774)

Worthington Meetinghouse

Colonial-era congregational meetinghouses served as a place for both religious services and town meetings. They often resembled large houses and did not always have steeples. The Worthington Meetinghouse (723 Worthington Ridge in Berlin) was built in 1774 with no steeple. One was added in 1790, but the building has since been restored to its original look without a steeple. The congregational church in Worthington (the west side of Berlin) had split from the church in Kennsington (the east side of Berlin) in 1772. A fire damaged the building in 1848. Although it was soon repaired, church members decided to erect a new church (now the Berlin Congregational Church) down the road. No longer a house of worship, the building continued its public function as the Worthington Town Hall. The large open space insde was divided into two floors: upstairs for town meetings and downstairs for a school with two classrooms. In 1907 the entire building became a school with a total of four classrooms. The old Meetinghouse served as a school until 1957, when it became the offices of the Berlin Board of Education. The building became vacant in the 1970s when it was declared unsafe. The inside was gutted around that time, but work halted, leaving the interior unfinished. Local residents have been working to restore the building as a community cultural center and museum.

Hezekiah Ranney House (1797)

Hezekiah Ranney House

The sign on the house at 14 Prospect Hill Road in Cromwell identifies it as the Hezekiah Ranney House with the date of 1797. In that year, Hezekiah Ranney (1742-1826), a school teacher, sold the house to Samuel Kirby, a farmer, and moved out of the state. Ranney had inherited the property in 1775 with a house built in the 1740s for his father, Capt. Joseph Ranney. Hezekiah Ranney possibly built the current house around 1788, when he mortgaged the property, and it was in existence by 1816, after the property was acquired by Benjamin Wilcox. The house is also known as the Kirby-Wilcox House. Benjamin Wilcox had a farm and operated a cider mill with his brother Eliphalet, who acquired his brother’s holdings in 1830. When Eliphalet Wilcox died in 1839, his son, Eben Wilcox, inherited the property. Eben gave the house to his son, Joseph E. Wilcox, in 1854. Joseph Wilcox, probably made the Italianate Victorian-era alterations to the house, c. 1870. His brownstone carriage step still stands in front of the house. The house was sold out of the Wilcox family in 1915.

Gideon Hale, Jr. House (1796)

Gilmore Manor

Two brothers, Gideon Hale Jr., and Ebenezer Hale, built the house at 1381 Main Street in Glastonbury in 1796. The house was known as “Gideon’s Temptation” because Gideon Hale, Jr. is said to have built it in a unsuccessful attempt to get a local woman to marry him. Although it was built in the late seventeenth century, the house’s current appearance reflects alterations in the Colonial Revival style made later. The house was acquired by J.H. Hale in 1911 and moved from its original location near Hale’s house at 1420 Main Street. The Gideon Hale, Jr. House is now Gilmore Manor, an assisted living facility.

Westport Methodist Episcopal Church (1907)

Former Westport Methodist Episcopal Church

Published in 1881, the History of Fairfield County, Connecticut, compiled by D. Hamilton Hurd, describes the early history of the Westport Methodist Episcopal Church:

The construction of the present church was commenced in the year 1851. Rev. Z. Davenport, now living at Saugatuck, Conn., was at that time the preacher in charge. Services were held in the old Universalist church for about two years, and until the Methodist Episcopal Church was completed.

[. . .] The original members were mostly persons who had in former years belonged to the same denomination and had worshiped at a church about two miles north of Westport village, at Poplar Plains.

The first Methodist sermon preached within the limits of this town was at Poplar Plain, in 1790, by Jesse Lee, in a house standing a few rods west of the now old church. Some few years after this regular preaching services were held in a ballroom of a tavern near by, and until the meeting house was built, about the year 1817, slabs upon legs being used for about forty years before the room was regularly seated. The old church is still standing, and is occasionally used upon some funeral occasion, the members having mostly died, the others having joined with some other Methoilist society.

Construction of a new church, located at 45 Church Lane, was begun in 1907. The church was known by the 1950s as the Community Methodist Church. In 1966 the church was sold to the neighboring Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, which uses it as the Christ & Holy Trinity Church Seabury Center and Preschool.

Lockwood–Mathews Mansion (1864)

Lockwood–Mathews Mansion

Happy New Year from Historic Buildings of Connecticut! One of Connecticut’s grandest houses is the Lockwood–Mathews Mansion in Norwalk. A 62-room Second Empire-style country house, it was built by LeGrand Lockwood, a New York City businessman and financier, who named the estate Elm Park. Construction of the mansion, designed by Detlef Lienau, begun in 1864 and took four years. Lockwood lavishly furnished his house and displayed art by Hudson River School painters, including the monumental Domes of the Yosemite by Albert Bierstadt. The depreciation of gold in 1869 was a series financial blow for Lockwood, who died in 1872. His heirs lost the estate through foreclosure in 1874. Charles D. Mathews bought the property in 1876 and it remained a residence of the Mathews family until the death of his daughter, Florence Mathews, in 1938. Sold to the City of Norwalk in 1941, the estate became a public park. After the city announced plans to demolish the mansion in 1959, preservationists formed a Common Interest Group and after a prolonged legal struggle were able to save it. The Junior League of Stamford-Norwalk arranged to lease the building from the city and formed the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum of Norwalk, Inc. to restore and operate the mansion as a public museum. The mansion is now undergoing a new renovation, begun in 2007.