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

Seventh Day Baptist Church, Waterford (1860)

The Seventh Day Baptists organized their church in Waterford in 1784. As related in the History of New London (1860) by Frances Manwaring Caulkins:

The society of Sabbatarians, or seventh-day Baptists, of the Great Neck, Waterford, date their commencement from the year 1674. They remained for the space of a century, members of the Westerly and Hopkinton church, with which they first united, but were constituted a distinct church, Nov. 2d, 1784.

Rev. William L. Burdick, in his history of “The Eastern Association” that appeared in Vol. II of Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America (1910), quotes from an article by Prof. Wm. A. Rogers that appeared in the Seventh-day Baptist Quarterly:

The Church has had three places of worship. The first was built in 1710, and was situated on the brow of the hill on the east side of the Neck. and. seems to have been owned jointly with the First-day Baptist Church. The second meeting-house built by the Church was situated just north of the present one, and on the opposite side of the road. It was built in 1816; and it cost $859 more than the amount previously raised by subscription. The pews were sold Dec. 24. 1816, to meet this indebtedness. The present house of worship was built in 1860, upon the present location, and upon land donated by Dea. David Rogers. It cost $1,989.

The present address of the church is 206 Great Neck Road in Waterford.

Knight-Whaples-Grant Cottage (1871)

The summer cottage at 25 Pettipaug Avenue in the Borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was built circa 1871 on land sold that year to Mrs. Cyrus Knight. Her husband, Rev. Cyrus Frederick Wright was rector of the Church of the Incarnation (later renamed St. James’ Episcopal Church) in Hartford from 1870 to 1877. He resigned after an incident in which church funds were stolen by the parish treasurer. Rev. Knight then served as rector of St. James Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1877 to 1889, but continued to summer in Fenwick. When he became Bishop of Milwaukee in 1889, he and his wife could no longer make the long trip to Fenwick and therefore rented the cottage for the summer. Rev. Knight died in 1891 and his wife, Elizabeth P. Pickering Knight, in 1912. The cottage was then owned for a time by Heywood Whaples. It was purchased in 1952 by Ellsworth Grant (1917-2013) and his wife, Marion Hepburn Grant (1918-1986), the sister of Katharine Hepburn. The cottage has later rear additions. You can read more about the cottage in Marion Hepburn Grant’s The Fenwick Story (Connecticut Historical Society, 1974), pages 128-131.

Matthews-Stow House (1753)

The house at 392 Jackson Hill Road in Middlefield was built sometime between January 1753, when John and Anna Wetmore Matthews purchased the land, and January 1755, when they sold it to Amos Miller. After Miller‘s death in 1777, the house had several owners. It was eventually purchased by Obed Stow (1767-1839), a shoemaker, in 1794. The house’s original central chimney has been replaced and the front portico was added later.

Henry W. Skinner House (1860)

The Skinner family were wood turners in Middlefield in the nineteenth century. The house at 445 Main Street in Middlefield was built by Henry W. Skinner not far from his father Albert‘s turning shop, which was started in 1853 along the Beseck River. Henry’s grandfather, Horace, had also been a turner. Henry W. Skinner took over the family business after his father’s death in 1868. The year before, he had given his house to his mother Almira, who lived there until her death in 1882.

Elisha Sage House (1776)

Elisha Sage (1755–1801), of the Upper Houses of Middletown (now Cromwell) served in the Revolutionary War. A mason, he built bridges and worked on the construction of the Old State House in Hartford. Sage married Martha Montague. His house, at 64 West Street in Cromwell, was built circa 1776.

Stephen P. Polley House (1870)

The house at 350 Main Street in Cromwell was built around 1870 on land purchased by Stephen P. Polley in 1869. Born in Chatham (Portland), Polley and his brother, Hiram Nelson Polley, moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, along with Levi Austin Hart of Southington and established Hart & Polley, a machine shop and metals manufacturing company. Stephen P. Polley later returned to Connecticut and founded the Cromwell Dime Savings Bank in 1871. He served as Cromwell’s town clerk from 1872 to 1878 and again from 1879 to 1881. After he died in 1887, his widow Catherine (from North Carolina) lived in the house until her death in 1891.

Taftville Congregational Church (1904)

The manufacturing village of Taftville in Norwich was established in 1866 and centered on the Taftville Mill, which later became the Ponemah Mill, the largest textile mill in the world under one roof. The company gave land to the village’s Congregational Society, which built the Taftville Congregational Church in 1904. The asymmetrical building has a shingled exterior.