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

Terryville Public Library (1922)

In 1839, thirty citizens of the Town of Plymouth (which includes Terryville), organized the Terryville Lyceum Library, a private subscription library. Interest dwindled after the Civil War, but near the turn of the century a new group of townspeople established the Terryville Free Public Library, which received the donation of all of the Lyceum Library’s books and 52 books from Francis Atwater, author of the History of the Town of Plymouth (1895). Initially the library was housed in the Town Hall courtroom and then for a time in a room in the old Main Street School before a demand for classroom space forced a relocation back to the Town Hall. The library finally got its own building, at 238 Main Street in Terryville, in 1922. An addition to the library was constructed in 1975.

St. Francis of Assisi Church (1904)

St. Francis of Assisi Parish was established in 1903 to serve the South Farms section of Middletown, as well as the towns of Durham and Middlefield. The parish’s first pastor, Rev. Patrick McGivney, was the brother of Fr. Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus. The parish’s new church (10 Elm Street in Middletown), built at a cost of $27,000, was dedicated on November 4, 1904.

Brookside (1898)

The house at 500 South Brooksvale Road in Cheshire combines elements of the Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles. Known as Brookside, it was built in 1898 as a summer cottage for Peter Palmer of Brooklyn.

Clark-Speake-Hotchkiss House (1880)

The house at 108 Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire was built in the 1880s by James Gardner Clark. It was sold to James M. Speake in 1905 and then to Susan Hotchkiss in 1909. The house was used to board students of Cheshire Academy in the 1940s and 1950s.

Glastenbury Knitting Company Houses (1920)

The two identical houses at 22-24 and 26-28 Addison Road in Glastonbury were built c. 1920 as mill worker tenements by the Glastenbury Knitting Company. The company, which manufactured underwear, used an older spelling of the town’s name. These tenement houses were built in the then-popular Dutch Colonial style, featuring gambrel roofs. The mill eventually sold off the houses in the 1930s.

Wadsworth Homestead (1685)

The rear ell of the house at 107 Main Street in Farmington dates to around 1685. It was built by John Wadsworth, Jr. (1662-1718), nephew of the Joseph Wadsworth (1647-1729) who had hidden the Royal Charter in the Charter Oak. The house remained in the Wadsworth family, eventually passing to John, Jr.’s youngest son, Rev. Daniel Wadsworth (1704-1747), pastor of the First Church of Christ in Hartford (Center Church). In 1771, Asahel Wadsworth (1743-1817) purchased the property from his cousins, the daughters of Daniel Wadsworth. He hired the architect/builder Judah Woodruff to construct the front portion of the house, which was completed between 1776 and 1781. The columned front porch was added much later. During the Revolutionary War, Asahel Wadsworth was appointed to correspond with other towns about “Colonial matters” and transact matters related to the Continental Congress. The Wadsworth farm ceased operation until the 1970s but the house has remained in the Wadsworth family for nine generations.

101 Main Street, Ellington (1832)

The house at 101 Main Street in Ellington displays features of the Gothic Revival: board-and-batten siding, decorative bargeboards and drip mold window crowns. The house was probably built as a simple version of the Greek Revival style (c. 1832) and later altered (c. 1860) in the Gothic Revival style.