The Methodist church in North Canton was built in 1871. The church, now called the North Canton Community United Methodist Church (3 Case Street), has an education addition at the rear, built in 2001.
Abel Shepard was a shipbuilder who had a shipyard near the landing in Middle Haddam. He had three sons, Abel, Jr., Bartlett and Harry, who followed him in the shipbuilding trade and constructed Federal-style homes for themselves on their father’s property. Bartlett‘s House, at 112 Moodus Road, was built around 1800 and has a Colonial Revival front portico, which was added later.
At 58 Moodus Road in Middle Haddam, East Hampton is a house built between 1780 and 1786 for a sea captain named Elijah Johnson. The house is built into the side of a slope and has original foundation walls on two sides.
St. John’s Industrial School, a Catholic residential school for boys in need of care, was established in Hartford in 1904. An impressive new building for the school, overlooking the Connecticut River, was built in Deep River in 1907-1908. The school was staffed by the Xaverian Brothers, a worldwide teaching congregation, until 1919. An orphanage for boys in Hartford, run Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery, moved to the site in Deep River and the Sisters of St. Joseph administered the home and school until 1958. Over the years, many additions were made to the facility, which evolved into a Home and School for Boys. The residential program closed in June 2013 and in September The Academy at Mount Saint John (135 Kirtland Street, Deep River) reopened as a Clinical Day School.
In the nineteenth century, Salem was home to what is considered to be the first music conservatory (the first degree-granting school of music, or at least music teaching certificate-granting school) in the United States. Founded around 1835 by Orramel Whittlesey, son of the local Methodist minister Rev. John Whittlesey, the school was first called Mr. Whittlesey’s School, later the Salem Normal Academy of Music, and eventually the Music Vale Seminary. Young women from all over the country came to attend the school. After its original rambling classroom building burned down in 1868, it was replaced by an elaborate Italianate structure. The school closed soon after Whittlesey’s death in 1876 and the main building was destroyed by fire in 1897. The school’s large barn, built c. 1849, does survive. It is typical of an “English barn,” a type also called a side-entry or eave entry barn, a “thirty by forty” (based on its dimensions), a “Yankee barn” or a “Connecticut Barn.” The school‘s farm played an important role for the institution, supplying animals and crops. The Bodman family later owned the Music Vale property and donated much of it to the Salem Land Trust. The barn is now part of what is known as Music Vale Farm. (more…)
The Central National Bank Building, at 363 Main Street in Middletown, was built in 1915. The bank was in business from 1865 to 1955. Considered to be the first modern office building in Middletown, it later housed Hartford National Bank and Trust and now Webster Bank.
The Farrington Building, located at 131-141 West Main Street in Waterbury, was constructed in c. 1925-1930 as an addition to the Westerly Apartments, a c. 1890 Queen Anne building. The Farrington Building is a two-story Georgian Revival retail and office structure. In 1935, the First Federal Savings & Loan Association, now known as Webster Bank, opened on the building‘s second floor. Its only employees were the company’s founder, Harold Webster Smith and a clerk. Smith started his new business during the Great Depression under the federal government’s National Housing Act, passed in 1934 to stimulate the economy and make housing construction and home mortgages more affordable. Webster Bank now has thousands of employees and numerous branches.
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