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

Church of Saint Patrick, Farmington (1922)

In 1870, Father Patrick Duggett bought an old building (a former clock shop) on Farmington Avenue to serve Farmington Catholics. In 1885 Farmington became a mission of Plainville’s Catholic church and in 1918 St. Patrick’s Parish was established. A basement church on Main Street was dedicated on November 27, 1919. The completed fieldstone church was dedicated on June 11, 1922. The donated fieldstone came from stone walls on local farms. Located at 110 Main Street, the Church of Saint Patrick has a pew with a brass plaque reading “Misses Bouvier” – it was donated by the future Mrs. John F. Kennedy and her sister in the 1940s when they attended Miss Porter’s School.

Benjamin Buck House (1729)

The oldest house in Bristol is located at 14 Daniel Road. It was built in 1729 by Benjamin Buck, from Southington, and his wife Mercy Parsons. They lived in the house until 1736. The house was once thought to have not survived, until it was discovered in 1951 hidden behind overgrown trees and brush!

Fletcher-Fenner Homestead (1755)

Around 1739, John Fletcher (d. 1788) and his wife, Rachel Wing Fletcher (1697-1778) (they married in 1720 in Harwich, Massachusetts), settled in the village of Wormwood Hill in Mandfield. By the mid-1750s they had built the central-chimney house at 611 Wormwood Hill Road. According to Wormwood Hill: Its Settlement and Growth (2009) by Rudy J. Favretti and Isabelle K. Atwood, John Fletcher became wealthy purchasing and selling various pieces of land. His son John possibly lived in the house, which then passed to his younger brother, Capt. Richard Fletcher (1736-1812), who sold it in 1806. It then had other owners. In 1843 it was acquired by Amos G. Fenner (1807-1882), a farmer originally from Warwick, Rhode Island. His son William (1837-1918) and daughter-in-law Damorous Anstice Holley Fenner (1835-1907) later lived in the house and turned the south lawn into a croquet court. In 1913, their son Frank E. Fenner (1865-1933), who lived in Waterbury, sold the house to his cousin, George Silas Clark (1869-1938). In 1954, it was purchased by H. John Thorkelson (d. 2003), an economics professor at UCONN, and his wife Virginia, is now the home of their son, Peter Tork, formerly of the band The Monkees.

Howell-Baldwin House (1757)

The house at 79 Elm Street in Ansonia was built in 1754 by Joseph Howell. It was later the home of Dr. Silas Baldwin (1729-1813), Derby’s third physician (Ansonia was at that time part of the town of Derby). He married Mary Plumb of Ridgefield in 1755. According to the Sixth Report of the National Society of the Daughter of the American Revolution (1904):

Dr. Silas Baldwin, Revolutionary patriot […] Assisted in establishing American independence while acting in the capacity of a patriot. He accepted the oath of fidelity to the United States April 13, 1778. Dr. Silas Baldwin enlisted June, 1776, in Captain Johnson’s company Fifth Battalion, Wadsworth’s brigade, Colonel Douglas’s regiment to reenforce Washington’s army at New York; August 29-30, 1776, engaged in the retreat to New York; was at the battle of White Plains October 28. Term expired December 26. (History of Derby, p. 187.)

No. 24 on muster roll of Capt. Elijah Humphrey’s company, Connecticut Regiment of Foot, commanded by Col. Return Jonathan Meigs, was Silas Baldwin, enlisting March 27,1777, “on command,” which maybe received in explanation of the record on page 208, Connecticut Men in the Revolution, which says: “Silas Baldwin in Humphrey’s company, Connecticut Line, enlisted March 27,1777; deserted August, 1779.” (Connecticut Men in the Revolution, pp. 208, 407; muster roll of Capt. Elijah Humphrey’s company. Copy deposited.)

Dr. Silas Baldwin was born in Waterbury and died in Ridgefield, but generally resided in the section of Derby that is now Ansonia. He is buried in Ansonia’s Colonial Cemetery. (more…)

Albert B Wildman House (1852)

William E. Weld, a builder of many homes in Guilford in the nineteenth century, built the house at 88 Boston Street for Albert B. Wildman in 1852. Albert Boardman Wildman (1810-1878) was a merchant whose store was at 11 Boston Street (also built by Weld). Wildman was eulogized by Henry Pynchon Robinson in Guilford Portraits (1907):

ALBERT BOARDMAN WILDMAN.
June 2, 1810—May 2, 1878.
He stood uprightly tall and manly fair,
And wore on his smooth face the higher air
Of honor and proved probity, unswerving.
It seemed quite natural nor needed nerving
From sermon or from motive practical;
The gift, its own reward, more actual.
He was a merchant, of an older time,
When six pence passed by candlelight for dime.
Tuttle he knew and loved and linked the name
With his; merchants of good report and fame,
Successful through their dealing days and lives.
Not such as bold and meritless connives
To seize and turn the common weal to woe,
But sought by willing suffrage he did go
And added Guilford to the common sense;
Then through the war he served by son and pence.
His manner frank and fair and mild and genial,
As fellow man, well would treat a menial.
A father of the town, he walked our ways
And then from life retreated, full of praise.

Walker Hall (Former Watertown Library) (1883)

The Watertown Library Association was established in 1865. First opened in the Academy on The Green and then occupying rented quarters above F.N. Barton’s Store on Woodbury Road, the library moved into its own building in 1883. A Richardsonian Romanesque structure at 50 DeForest Street, it was designed by Robert W. Hill of Waterbury. Dr. John Deforest had given the library $5000 in 1876 for a book fund and his brother, the merchant Benjamin DeForest, helped to fund the construction of the new library with a donation of $15,000 (pdf). The library moved into a modern building on Main Street in 1958. The former library building then became Our Savior Lutheran Church. It has more recently been purchased by the Taft School. Called Walker Hall, it is used as a performing arts space and chapel.

I. S. Spencer & Sons Foundry (1869)

In 1851 Israel Stowe Spencer purchased an iron foundry on Fair Street in Guilford. The company Spencer founded, I. S. Spencer’s Sons (his sons, Christopher and George B. Spencer joined him in 1857), added a brick foundry to the property in 1869. It was enlarged in 1880. The company produced cast iron products, such as legs for school desks, lamp pedestals and bicycle parts. Frederick C. Spencer, I. S. Spencer‘s grandson, built the tower at the south end of the building in 1910. The company ceased operations in 1982. The building was converted into condominiums in 1987. Its former address was 20 Fair Street and is now 18 Fair Street.