The house at 681 Middle Turnpike in the Mansfield Four Corners section of Mansfield, not far from Storrs, was built sometime before 1820. It had a number of owners until 1843, when it was purchased by Rev. Aaron R. Livermore (1810-1892), who was the minister of Mansfield’s North Society Church, now Storrs Congregational Church, from 1843 to 1858. The house was next owned by the Fish family.
The sign on the house at 114 Perry Avenue, in the Silvermine section of Norwalk, identifies it as the Ralph Keeler House, built c. 1750. The Keelers were one of the founding families of Norwalk. Also known as the Isaac Camp property, the house has elsewhere been dated to c. 1778. Verneur E. Pratt (1891-1966) moved to Norwalk in the late 1920s and lived in the house. An inventor and entrepreneur, Verneur Pratt converted the adjacent carriage barn (116 Perry Avenue, built c. 1800) into a laboratory in the late 1930s. Pratt invented the Optigraph Reading Machine, an early microfilm reader.
The Benton-Beecher House in Guilford was originally located on Broad Street, where the the First Congregational Church now stands. It was built in 1740 and was the home of Lot Benton and his wife, Catherine Lyman. They had no children of their own but they adopted Mrs. Benton’s nephew, Lyman Beecher. He came to this house on his vacations as a student at Yale. Lyman Beecher eventually became a prominent Congregational minister. In Guilford he met Roxana foote, whom he married in 1799. Their children included Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher The Benton House was left by Lot Benton to Lyman Beecher, who sold the land to church in 1829 so that it could be removed to make way for the construction of the new meeting house. The house was moved by 35 yoke of oxen to its present location at 485 Whitfield Street.
The house at 1283 Saybrook Road in Haddam was built about 1775 by Benjamin Ray on land he had inherited, with his brother Peter, from their father James Ray (1689-1786) the year before. The brothers sold the property to John Ely in 1804. His son William sold the house in 1839 to the Odber family (William’s daughter Harriet had married John Odber).
In 1886 the Fairfield County Bar Association and county representatives decided that the time had come to build a new county courthouse in Bridgeport. The city’s first courthouse (now called McLevy Hall), built in 1854, had become inadequate and its location near the public square meant that noise from the street, including from streetcars, had become a a nuisance when court was in session. As had occurred before in the 1850s, when the county seat was moved from the town of Fairfield to Bridgeport, the city of Norwalk made its own bid to build the new courthouse, but Bridgeport leaders, including Sidney B. Beardsley and P.T. Barnum, appropriated more funds and won legislative approval. The cornerstone for the building, located near the northwest corner of Golden Hill and Main Streets, was laid on June 24, 1887. Completed in 1888, the Courthouse is a Richardsonian Romanesque structure designed by Warren R. Briggs. There is also a Fairfield County Courthouse in Danbury.
In 1848 Lucius Lyon constructed a seminary building on the site now occupied by Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Essex. It was constructed to house students at the neighboring Hills Academy. In 1869 the building was converted into a hotel called the Pettipaug House. Operating under several other names over the years, the building was sold to Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic parish in 1926. The parish‘s previous church had been the former St. John’s Episcopal Church, acquired by the parish in 1897 and destroyed by fire in 1925. Extensive work was undertaken on the former hotel to convert it into a church, such that it was considered to be essentially a new building, although remaining on the earlier building’s foundation. The original east-facing entrance was replaced by the new church’s south-facing entrance. The church was again completely renovated in 1997, giving it a much altered appearance.
You must be logged in to post a comment.