At 428-432 Main Street in Middletown is an Art Deco building that was built as a Woolworth’s store (F.W. Woolworth Co.) in 1939. An horrific tragedy took place in 1989, when a 9-year old girl, having walked out of the store during a street fair with her mother and sister, was fatally stabbed by a mental patient from the Connecticut Valley Hospital, a psychiatric institute in Middletown. The Woolworth’s store closed in late 1993 and the building is now home to Irreplaceable Artifacts.
South Windsor’s Union District School was the most modern school building in Connecticut at the time of its construction in 1905. The new school brought together students from three others that once operated along Main Street. Located at 771 Main Street, the former school building, long believed to be haunted, was purchased from the town by the South Windsor Historical Society for $1 in 2002. The Society is currently renovating the long vacant building, which will become a museum of local history and a cultural arts center.
Brandegee Hall, at 983 Worthington Ridge in Berlin, was built in 1884 by William Brandegee to be used for concerts, plays and other entertainments such as roller-skating. In 1907, the building was acquired by the town of Berlin and used as a Town Hall until 1974. Over the years it also housed a post office, the Berlin Grange and the Berlin Playhouse, a local theater group. With the erection of a new Town Hall, the old building was sold to a private owner and used for storage. Having fallen into disrepair, the Hall was renovated in the early 2000s in response to the town’s new blighted property ordinance.
Dwight E. Potter (1840-1911) was a carpenter and builder based in Willimantic. As head carpenter for the Willimantic Linen Company, he designed and constructed mill buildings, an office building and worker housing and was superintendent of all outside work. He also helped to build the Loomer Opera House on Main Street and ran a woodworking shop that produced interior and exterior architectural millwork for Willimantic’s Victorian-era houses. Potter was chief of Willimantic’s fire department from 1873 to 1880. In 1881, Potter and his first wife, Mary Ann Hazen, moved into a house he had designed and erected at 76 Windham Road. The house is now home to the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The Greek Revival house at 14 (or 12) Washington Street in Bristol was built for Elisha Manross in 1832 (although the town assessors database lists it as 1740). Elisha Manross was a Bristol clock-maker. As related in Bristol, Connecticut (“In the Olden Time New Cambridge”) which Includes Forestville (1907):
Was born in Bristol, May 11, 1792, and became one of the pioneers of brass clock-making in America, making the first jeweled movements ever made here. He was a Captain in the war of 1812. and commanded a company of one hundred men to guard the coast at Fort Killingly. He was also Captain of the Bristol Artillery Company. He was a deacon and long a member of the Congregational Church in Bristol. Three of his sons were in the Civil War, Captain Newton, Sergeant Elias and John. He was an extensive land owner in Forestville, and conducted a large clock business. In 1821 he married Maria Cowles Norton. He died September 27, 1856.
St. Paul Lutheran Church in Terryville in the Town of Plymouth was formally organized on January 13, 1892. The church, located at 134 Main Street, was built in nine months in 1902. A parsonage was erected in 1907 and the dedication of the newly renovated sanctuary was held on June 9, 1912.
Located at 28 The Green in Watertown is a house originally designed by noted builder/architect David Hoadley, although it has been much altered over the years. It was built in 1805 for Alanson Warren, Senior, first president of Wheeler & Wilson, manufacturers of sewing machines. One of his sons, Truman A. Warren, built a house across the street in 1851. Another son, Alanson Warren, Jr., inherited his father’s house and made substantial alterations to it in the Italianate style: large wings were added and a veranda that spanned the front facade. In the 1930s, the house was altered again in the Federal Revival style by architect Cameron Clark (pdf). The Italianate wings were replaced with smaller ones and the interior was completely remodeled. Clark also added the central entry porch.
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