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

Tolland Inn (1800)

The Steele House at 63 Tolland Green in Tolland dates back to around 1800, although there is evidence it may have started as a late eighteenth-century saltbox. The house was once owned by Benjamin Ashley and later by Lucius Fuller. Several residents served as cashier at the Tolland Bank. The house was enlarged in the mid-nineteenth century and the original central chimney was eventually removed. The Steele House was the last of a series of inns and hotels that had served visitors on Tolland’s village Green. Run by John H. and Alice Webster Steele, it began taking guests in 1914. The Steeles operated the guest house until 1942 and owned it until 1958. Susan and Steve Beeching bought the property in 1985, renovated it and opened it in 1987 as the Tolland Inn, a bed and breakfast.

Commodore Macdonough School (1924)

Commodore Thomas Macdonough was a Naval hero of the War of 1812 who defeated the British at the Battle of Lake Champlain in 1814. Earlier in the war he had overseen the construction of gunboats in Middletown and after the war made his home in the city. At 66 Spring Street in Middletown is the Commodore Macdonough Elementary School, which was built in 1924 and dedicated in 1925.

Parker Academy (1851)

As related in Volume 2 of William Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury (1872):

The south Academic Association, formed in 1851, ran “well for a season,” when the shares were bought up by Mr. Parmenns B. Hulse, who taught a private academy for some years, but having a flattering call to go to New York and engage in a book agency, he sold the building” to Mr. Frederick S. Parker, of New Haven, who removed it to the place formerly owned by Hon. Charles B. Phelps, deceased, and fitted it up for a first-class boarding-school, and at the same time enlarged and fitted up, at great expense, the Phelps mansion, for the purpose of accommodating the scholars of such a school. Rev. Alonzo N. Lewis, who had married a daughter of Mr. Phelps, opened here a boarding-school. But, having been invited to become rector of a church at Dexter, Maine, he closed his school, and rented the premises for a dwelling house. It is a very valuable property, and it is hoped that a successful boarding-school may be established there. We have a healthy location, a tidy village, an orderly community, and a most beautiful valley, with pleasant surroundings—a good place for such an institution.

According to Julia Minor Strong’s The Town and People: A Chronological Compilation of Contributed Writings from Present and Past Residents of the Town of Woodbury, Connecticut (1901)

The principals of Parker Academy, so far as can be ascertained, were as follows: Samuel Spooner, P. B. Hulse, Mr. Phinney, Rev. A. N. Lewis, Aritus G. Loomis, James Patterson, Louise Noyes, Wilbur V. Rood, Edwin Turtle, H. C. Talmage, O. C. B. Nason, Edgar H. Grout, Edward S. Boyd, H. B. Moore and Rev. Wm. Weeks. While Mr. Hulse was instructor in Parker Academy Mr. Thompson taught a select school in his residence situated on the adjoining premises. Some times there would be seventy-five scholars in each of the two schools, and it was not uncommon for six or more students to enter Yale or other colleges each year from these schools. Parker Academy was moved to its present location near the post office when Rev. A. N. Lewis was principal, and he conducted a boarding school for pupils in connection with the Parker House, then owned by Frederick S. Parker.

The Woodbury Library Association was established in 1851. In 1902, the former Parker Academy building became the town library. A modern library building was later constructed and the former Parker Academy is now the Library’s Galley Annex.

First Church of Christ Scientist, Hartford (1956)

Two students of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, began conducting Sunday services in homes in Hartford in 1890 and a year later secured a hall for services. A Christian Science Society was formed in 1896 and was incorporated in 1898 as the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Hartford. A church home was built on Farmington Avenue in 1908. Services began in the current church, a Colonial Revival building at 235 Scarborough Street, in 1956. Hartford also has a Second Church of Christ Scientist, which for several years used the former Park Congregational Church on Asylum Street, then had a church home on Lafayette Street, and is today based at the Christian Science Reading Room at 24 Central Row in downtown Hartford. Former Hartford resident Mark Twain was a critic of Christian Science and his view of Mary Baker Eddy was very hostile. In 1907 he published a book, Christian Science, which collected his essays on the subject.

Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church, Hartford (1925)

Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Parish in the Parkville neighborhood of Hartford began as a mission chapel, built on Grace Street in 1887. Before that time, the area’s German, French, and Irish Catholic immigrants had been attending mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. Our Lady of Sorrows was made a parish in 1895. Ground was broken for the current church, designed by O’Connell and Shaw of Boston, in 1922. Located at 79 New Park Avenue, the church, which has a seating capacity of 1200, was dedicated on July 26, 1925. The church suffered damage in the 1938 hurricane, which caused the removal of the upper portions of the two towers on either side of the front entrance.

North United Methodist Church, Hartford (1919)

Hartford’s North Methodist Church was started in 1869 as a mission of the city’s First Methodist Church. A chapel was built on Windsor Avenue (now Main Street) in 1871, followed by the remainder of the church in 1873-1874. This original church building was later sold (it is now the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church). The current North United Methodist Church, at 1205 Albany Avenue, was built in 1919 and was designed by Floyd Paisnes.

Shiloh Baptist Church, Hartford (1915)

Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford is the city’s fourth oldest black church. It began in 1889 after a split in the membership of Union Baptist Church. The church began in the home of Lucy Roy and then used various halls temporarily, until occupying a church on Mather Street, built in 1902. The current church building, at 350 Albany Avenue, was built in stages. As the Hartford Courant reported on December 7, 1914:

It was decided to build upon the pay-as-you-go plan, and the vestry of the edifice was built, the cornerstone being laid December 4, 1911. The new vestry was dedicated in February, 1912. Since this dedication, this part of the church has been the meeting place of the parish members. Last winter, the temporary roof over the vestry was troublesome because of its leaking. To repair it would have involved the expenditure of some $1,500, and it was decided to make one piece of work of raising the structure to completion.

The completed church, designed by L. D. Bayley, was dedicated on June 27, 1915.