First Baptist Church of Waterbury (1917)

Former First Baptist Church, Waterbury

The First Baptist Church of Waterbury was organized in 1803. At first, meetings were held in members’ homes or outdoors. The first meeting house was built in 1818 at the Mill Mill Plain crossroads, two-and-a-half miles from the center of town. It had no paint, plaster or chimney and the seats were wooden benches without backs. The second house of worship was erected (after considerable financial difficulties) c. 1840 in the town center on South Main Street. It was later significantly remodeled and extended, the entrance being moved to the Bank Street side of the building (the church spire was later taken down after it was deemed unsafe). This church was later replaced by a new one, built on Grand Street and dedicated in 1883. It was destroyed by fire in 1912. The corner stone of the church’s fourth building, at 208 Grove Street (located in a primarily residential area), was laid on October 3, 1915 and the completed church was dedicated in 1917. The Baptists later moved from the building, which is now New Life of Waterbury Church.

David Greenleaf House (1763)

Greenleaf House

In 1761, David Greenleaf, a goldsmith, purchased land in Norwich on which he soon built a house, perhaps in 1763, the year he married Mary Johnson. David Greenleaf sold the house, located at 2 Town Street (near the Christopher Leffingwell House), in 1769 and moved to Boston. It was then the home of Jesse Williams until 1772, then of Capt. William Billings, whose widow sold it in 1796 to the cabinet maker Timothy Lester. His heirs sold the property in 1854. In recent years, the Society of the Founders of Norwich acquired the house and restored it.

Rev. John Rathbone House (1775)

Rev. John Rathbone House

Dating to 1775 (and probably later modified in the Federal style) is the home of Rev. John Rathbone (1729-1826) at 87 Water Street in Stonington. Rev. Rathbone was the first minister of the Baptist church in Stonington Borough, organized in 1775. According to the Brown Genealogy, Vol. II (1915), by Cyrus Henry Brown,

He was a Baptist, a patriot of the Revolution, member of the Stonington Committee of Correspondence and Inspection, and signer of the memorial to the Connecticut Assembly praying for cannon to protect the town of Stonington against the British attack on Long Point, in 1777. He organized the Baptist Church at Westford, Mass, in 1780, and became its first pastor, in 1781. He preached at Saratoga, NY, in his ninety-fifth year.

Ezekiel Kelsey House (1760)

Ezekiel Kelsey House

In a 1753 division of Wethersfield common land, Ezekiel Kelsey was granted a lot for his farm in what is now East Berlin. Ezekiel Kelsey built a house at what is now 429 Beckley Road around 1760, either for himself or for his son Asahel, to whom he gave the residence in 1768. Ezekiel Kelsey (1713-1795) also owned a share in a saw mill and was skilled as a cooper and a carpenter-joiner. He married Sarah Allis (1715–1798) in 1741. Ezekiel Kelsey’s brother, Enoch Kelsey, built a house that is also still in existence in Newington.

Dr. Henry Skelton House (1748)

Dr. Henry Skelton House

The colonial saltbox house at 889 S. Main Street in Southington was built in 1748. It was the home of Dr. Henry Skelton (or Skilton).

As related in Heman R. Timlow’s Ecclesiastical and Other Sketches of Southington, Conn. (1875), Dr. Henry Skelton

was the second resident physician of the town, and was a man of more than common ability in almost every particular. Not only did he successfully practice his profession, but conducted various business enterprises. At one time he had a store, hotel, mill, and two or three farms on hand.

He was born in the parish of St. Michael’s, Coventry, England, November 19, 1718, and entered the British navy at seventeen years of age, and his ship landing at Boston he left the service and remained in this country. In 1741 we find him married to Tabitha Avery [(1717-1797)], of Preston, and in 1748 he removed to Southington, and bought the farm that belonged to the late Avery Clark, Esq., at Clark Farms. He owned a large tract of land in the vicinity of the Merriman Burying Ground, and also the property now the site of the Atwater Manufacturing Company.

The time he began to practice medicine is unknown, but it is supposed that being intelligent and apt he began in the small way of extracting teeth and blood-letting; and by reading of some text-books in Surgery and Practice, he was able to treat ordinary cases. He gave himself, however, more to business than to the practice of his profession. It was probably his superior judgment that secured his professional success. In 1760 he removed to Woodbury, where he practiced medicine, and became a landholder. A son of his having been drafted to serve in the continental army, he took his place. He died at Watertown [to whence he moved in 1788] in 1802, aged eighty-four.

Concerning his military service, it is described in Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut, Vol. II (1911) [also repeated in New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Vol. IV (1913)]:

Henry Skilton took the place of his son Avery, who was drafted for the continental army, about the time of the battle of Bunker Hill, and was with a detachment stationed at Roxbury Neck, near Boston, Massachusetts. He is said to have rendered such service as a private soldied as to attract marked attention and to receive an appointment and commission as surgeon.

As related in William Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut, From the First Indian Deed in 1659 to 1854 (1854):

Dr. Skilton’s preferences in religion were for the Congregational or Calvinistic doctrines, but he did not approve some of the disciplinary customs of his brethren, nor did he accept the form of church government in use among them. Hence he became a ” Separate,” and held meetings at various places, teaching his followers in the “things of religion.” In Prospect, Conn., the remnant of a church of his organizing existed as late as 1831, in the person of an aged lady who still revered her former pastor’s name.