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

D.M. Read Company (1925)

Founded in 1857 by D.M. Read, Read’s Department Store in Bridgeport became a retail landmark, evolving into a chain of stores that provided upscale merchandise for over a century. In 1869, the D.M. Read Company moved into a grand Second Empire-style building at the corner of Main Street and Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport. The store moved again in 1925-1926 into a Neoclassical building at the corner of John and Broad Streets. It was designed by Monks and Johnson of Boston. The downtown Bridgeport store was closed in 1981. In the 1990s, the building, now called Read’s Artspace or Sterling Market Lofts, was converted into apartments for artists as live-work spaces.

George W. Jackman House (1892)

At 2403 North Avenue in Bridgeport is a Queen Anne/Shingle style house built in 1892. It was the residence of George W. Jackman, General Manager of the Springfield Manufacturing Company. He was also a Bridgeport Alderman. According to Volume 1 of the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917, edited by George C. Waldo, Jr.):

The Springfield Manufacturing Company, incorporated 1909, succeeded the Springfield Emery Wheel Manufacturing Company, which was established in 1880. Grinding machinery and abrasive wheels are made by this company[.]

49 Main Street, Newtown (1790)

The Federal-style house at 49 Main Street in Newtown was built around 1790. It originally stood on the other side of the street, but was moved by Henry Beers Glover to make way for his new house.

Miles H. Aborn House (1916)

The Colonial Revival house at 139 Maple Street in Ellington was built in 1916 for Miles H. Aborn. The Church of St. Luke, dedicated next door in 1962, purchased the house from the estate of George Wendhiser for use as a rectory.

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Hartford (1928)

In 1896, Father Joseph Zebris of St. Andrew Church, New Britain organized the Sons of Lithuania Society in Hartford, offering Mass for the city’s Lithuanian immigrants in a rented room on Sheldon Street. 1900, when the mission filed a report with the diocese of Hartford, is officially regarded as the inaugural year of Holy Trinity Catholic Church. In 1903, the church purchased property on Capitol Avenue which included a two-story brick building which was converted into a place of worship. This brick dwelling was moved to the back of the lot in 1913 to make room for construction of a new church. The cornerstone was blessed on October 10, 1915 and a basement chapel was ready for use by Christmas of that year. The remainder of the church was completed in 1927 and was dedicated on March 18, 1928. (more…)

David Johnson House (1865)

A terrible tragedy took place yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut. My thoughts go out to this devastated community, which is such a beautiful place. The house pictured above, at 46 Main Street in Newtown, was built around 1865 and was the home of David Johnson, who ran the Newtown General Store across the street. The picture was taken a few years ago, in the Spring during happier days. (more…)

Major Thomas Attwater Barnes House (1885)

The house at 463 Orange Street in New Haven was built in 1884-1885 for Major Thomas Attwater Barnes, who ran a grocery business. According to vol. II of A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (1918), Thomas Attwater Barnes‘s father, Amos Foote Barnes,

came to New Haven from Watertown, Connecticut, in 1836 and in 1842 began his independent business career as a grocer, the outgrowth of which was the wholesale grocery business conducted for many years under the name of Fintch & Barnes and one of the well and favorably known business houses of the city. He married Nancy Richards Attwater, daughter of Thomas Attwater, and a descendant of David Attwater, one of the first settlers of New Haven.

Thomas Attwater Barnes, son of Amos F., was born in New Haven in 1848 and in 1869 became a partner of his father, when the firm name was established as Amos F. Barnes & Son and so continued until the partnership was terminated by the death of the senior member in 1890. Thomas Barnes stood in the first rank of New Haven’s substantial and valued citizens, becoming closely identified with a number of the city’s large business interests and actively interested in its public affairs. He served as president of the chamber of commerce; secretary of the State Board of Trade; president of the Union & New Haven Trust Company, which he organized; vice president and a director of the First National Bank, of which his father was an organizer; a trustee of the Connecticut Savings Bank, and director in a number of other corporations in New Haven and elsewhere. He was a member of the New Haven Grays, a famous organization in the city’s history, known as Company F, Second Regiment of the National Guard of Connecticut, joining as a private and advancing to the rank of major in the regiment. He died in 1902. Major Barnes was married in 1873 to Phoebe Bryan Phipps, daughter of Frank Goffe Phipps, of New Haven. Mrs. Barnes passed away in 1903, the mother of two children, Amos Foote and Frank Goffe Phipps, the elder also a resident of New Haven.

Biographical descriptions of T. Attwater Barnes can also be found in Taylor’s Souvenir of the Capitol (1897-1898) and in Vol. I of the Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven County, Connecticut (1902).