Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Congregational Church of Salem (1838)

In 1728, the first Congregational meeting house to be constructed in New Salem (a parish established in 1725 from sections of Lyme and Colchester; it is now the Town of Salem) was built on what is now called Music Vale Road. In 1763 the building was destroyed and a new one erected on the corner of what is now Witch Meadow Road and Route 85. Another building later replaced it on the same site. It was later demolished and the materials were reused in the construction of the current Congregational Church of Salem, built in 1838 and located on the Salem Town Green.

Second Congregational Church, Manchester (1889)

The Second Congregational Church of Manchester was formed and its first house of worship was built in the northern section of town in 1851. A new church was built on the same site, 385 North Main Street, in 1889. It is a Shingle style edifice on a high rusticated brownstone foundation. (more…)

Hazard Power Company Superintendent’s House (1865)

The Italianate villa-style house at 8 School Street, at the corner of Hazard Avenue in the Hazardville section of Enfield, was built in 1865 to serve as the home of the superintendent of the Hazard Powder Company. It is the largest house in the neighborhood.

Ithamar Parsons House (1734)

The house at 57 Middlefield Road in Durham was built in 1733-1734 by Ithamar Parsons (1707-1786), shortly after his marriage to Sarah Curtis. Parsons carved the date 1734 upside down on the northwest cornerstone of the house’s brownstone foundation. The house passed to his son, Aaron Parsons (1758-1812), who carved “A.P. 1800” near his father’s inscription on the cornerstone. Aaron willed the south half of the house to his widow, Lucy Hawley Parsons, and the north half to his eldest son Curtis. Lucy and Curtis sold their portions to Marcus Parsons, Aaron’s third eldest son. who was a shoemaker. Marcus married Orpha Robinson in 1812. The house was acquired by Thomas William Lyman in 1853. Thomas W. Lyman was the grandson of Thomas Lyman, IV, who built a large Georgian-style house nearby. The house was sold out of the Lyman family in 1889.

Samuel Beach House (1790)

The Samuel Beach House in Branford (not to be confused with a later Samuel Beach House in Branford, built in 1875 as a summer cottage) is located at 94 East Main Street. The WPA Survey of Old Buildings in Connecticut dates the house to 1790. A twentieth-century owner, Samuel W. Beach, restored the house as closely as possible to a late eighteenth-century appearance.

William I. Palmer House (1843)

Located at 159 East Main Street in Branford, the Greek Revival-style William I. Palmer House was built c. 1843.

Blackstone Memorial Library (1896)

At 758 Main Street in Branford is the imposing James Blackstone Memorial Library, constructed between 1893 and 1896. The library was a gift of Timothy B. Blackstone, a railroad executive born in Branford, in memory of his father. The James Blackstone Memorial Library Association, with a board of trustees consisting of six residents of Branford and the librarian of Yale University, was incorporated in 1893. Blackstone provided an endowment fund $300,000. The monumentally-scaled library, constructed of Tennessee marble with a domed octagonal rotunda, was designed by Solon Spencer Beman of Chicago. It is a Classical Revival building with architectural details modeled on the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens. The dome has murals painted by Oliver Dennett Grover. The library was dedicated on June 17, 1896. There is also a Blackstone Library in Chicago, also designed by Beman and named after Timothy Blackstone.