Trinity Episcopal Church in Southport was built in 1862. Eight years later the parish began to consider plans to build an adjacent chapel that would serve as a Sunday school. The Parish School opened on September 23, 1872 in the new Carpenter Gothic-style Chapel, which features board-and-batten siding. Originally a free-standing structure, the Chapel, which now serves as a parish hall, has been connected to the church complex through twentieth-century additions.
The building listed in the nomination to the National Register of Historic Places for the Colony Street/West Main Street Historic District as the Cahill Beef Block (55 Colony Street [historically 57 Colony Street] in Meriden) is a Georgian/Neoclassical Revival structure built in 1902-1903. It was also a branch of the Swift Beef Co., as described in Meat-packer Legislation: Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Sixty-Sixth Congress, Second Session, on Meat-packer Legislation, Tuesday, March 18, 1920:
C. W. Cahill, Meriden, Conn.: Local slaughterer became Swift agent, organized Cahill Beef Co. 1909. Sold out his interest to Swift 1915 because he had to handle Swift goods exclusively. Corporation dissolved 1916. Now Swift branch house.
A more detailed account of Cornelius W. Cahill’s career can be found in An Historic Record and Pictorial Description of the Town of Meriden, Connecticut and the Men Who Have Made It, AKA A Century of Meriden (1906):
He was born in Ireland, Februarv 12. 1844, and his parents located in Middletown when he was three years old. . . .
In 1865 he came to Meriden and became a clerk in the provision store of Samuel C. Paddock where by courteous attention to patrons he made himself not only valuable to his employer but popular with a large number of customers. When he was offered a more lucrative position in the same line of business he made up his mind that he could be as much value in his own store as in that of others and encouraged by his customers, of whom he had made personal friends, established the City Market. After carrying on the business for some time alone he took in a partner, John W. Coe, and continued the business for three years. John W. Coe sold his interest to Patrick Cahill and M. O’Brien. It then became known as Cahill & O’Brien Later with Bartholomew & Coe he went into the pork packing business, but within a year returned to the retail business at the City Market. Some time afterward he retired from the retail business, selling his interest in the City Market to B. B. Lane, and became again the partner of Bartholomew & Coe, who in the meantime had become the Meriden agents for Swift’s beef. At the end of a year Messrs. Coe and Bartholomew retired, selling their interest to Mr. Cahill,; who for the past twenty-five years has continued the wholesale commission business in handling the Swift beef, which at the close of the first century of Meriden’s history has increased to almost mammoth proportions.
In 1903 Swift & Co. erected their present handsome brick building on North Colony street which is equipped with every modern facility for receiving, keeping and handling the large amount of beef shipped daily from Chicago and supplied by Mr. Cahill to the meat markets in the vicinity of Meriden.
The former Swift/Cahill building is now known as The Studios at 55 and features band rehearsal rooms, a recording studio, and a performance hall.
The Johnson Block is a retail and apartment building built in 1910 at 705-713 Main Street in Manchester. Recently the Johnson Block was purchased by new owners with plans to make much-needed repairs to the building.
The Federal-style house at 754 Worthington Ridge in Berlin was built around 1825. It was owned early on by Levi Deming, a farmer.
Amariah Storrs (1728-1806), a tavern-keeper, built the house at 526 Storrs Road in Mansfield around 1760. In 1761 there were several meetings “of the proprietors of the new incorporated Township of Lebanon in the Province of Newhampshire legally warned and Convened at the house of Amariah Storrs inholder in Mansfield.” [see the History of Lebanon, N.H., by Rev. Charles A. Downs (1908) and “Early History of Lebanon” (The Granite Monthly, Vol. II/XII, Nos. 3,4, March, April 1889).] Amariah Storrs sold the house to Rev. John Sherman, who only owned for six months, in 1798-1799. The house was later owned by two carpenters: Joseph Sollace bought it in 1815 and exchanged houses with Charles Arnold in 1845. The house has been much altered over the years.
The Greek Revival house at 1 Babcock Road in North Stonington was built c. 1830-1840. There is a barn on the property (east of the house) that was used as a cider mill, a blacksmith shop, and then a paint shop by William J. Richmond.
At 34 Prospect Hill Road in the Stony Creek section of Branford is the William J. Clark House, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as “Stick Style House at Stony Creek.” Designed by Henry Austin, the house was built in 1878-1880 as the summer home of William Judson Clark of Southington. In 1854, with his two brothers, Clark had founded the Clark Brothers Company, which manufactured nuts, bolts, washers, screws and rivets. Clark lived in an 1860 house in Southington.
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