One of the many buildings constructed in the wake of the 1902 fire in downtown Waterbury (or was it built in 1900, before the fire?) is the Mullings Building at 95-103 Bank Street. It was originally home to John Mullings‘s clothing store.
The parish of St. Alexis was founded in 1995 in Clinton as a mission of the Orthodox Church in America. The parish was named for St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre. Originally a Carpatho-Rusyn Eastern Rite Catholic (Uniate) priest, Alexis Toth came to America in 1889 to serve at St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Confronted by a Roman Catholic clergy which, seeking to Americanize Catholic immigrants, was hostile to to ethnic parishes, St. Alexis and his parish entered the Russian Orthodox Church in 1892. He would be responsible for many conversions of Uniate Catholics to Orthodoxy. St. Alexis died in 1909 and was canonized in 1994 as St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre by the Orthodox Church in America. The church in Clinton, at 108 East Main Street, was constructed in 1997-1999 to plans drawn by the firm of Hibbard and Rosa, Architects of Middletown.
Standing high above the level of the street in East Haddam is the Reuben Cone House, at 92 Main Street. It was built around 1760. Reuben Cone was born in East Haddam in 1723 and died in Nova Scotia in 1798.
The house at 834 Laurel Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1914 and was originally the home of T. Smith McLean, a salesman for Harvey Hubbell Inc., a manufacturing company that is still in operation.
Pavilion Hall in New Preston (in the town of Washington) was built in 1897 (some sources claim 1929) as a community hall for concerts, plays and celebrations. At one time, the building contained a post office and a fire engine was kept inside behind the double doors in front. Today the building is home to the Boys and Girls Club of New Preston and is named for Harry O.Erickson, a beloved community volunteer.
Located along the canal on South Main Street in Windsor Locks, is the former factory complex of C. H. Dexter & Sons, paper manufacturers. A brief history of the company appeared in The American Stationer of July 25, 1914 (Vol. LXXVI, No. 4) as follows:
The Dexter paper mill is one of the oldest landmarks of Windsor Locks, the business dating back nearly eighty years. From a grist mill, built by ancestors of the present owners over one hundred years ago, there developed the manufacture of paper that has grown to large proportions. The old mill was operated by Seth Dexter, 1st, and later by his son of the same name. When the latter died, his son, Charles H. Dexter, took possession of the mill, and in 1835 Mr. Dexter began making paper out of manila rope in the basement of the old grist mill. In 1840 a mill for the exclusive purpose of manufacturing paper was erected on the opposite side of the canal. The nucleus of the present plant was built in 1876, after the original mill had been destroyed by fire.
Charles H. Dexter died in 1869 and was succeeded by Edwin D. Dexter and Herbert R. Coffin. In 1886 Mr. Dexter died and the business passed into the hands of Mr. Coffin, who continued it under the old name. He increased the size of the plant and began the making of high-grade specialties and tissues. On the death of Mr. Coffin in 1901, his sons, Arthur D. and Herbert R., continued the business, maintaining the plant under the old name, C. H. Dexter & Sons.
The Dexter Corporation (as the company was known after 1966) was dismantled in 2000. The company’s nonwovens production facilities in Windsor Locks were sold to the Finish company, Ahlstrom Paper Group. (more…)
Happy New Year!!! We begin the year with the Litchfield Historical Museum. The Noyes Memorial Building was constructed in 1901 (and expanded in 1906-1907) to house the town library and the Litchfield Historical Society, the latter of which had been founded in 1856. The building was built by John A. Vanderpoel in memory of his grandmother, Julia Tallmadge Noyes, a local resident and amateur historian who had led the Historical Society for many years. A granddaughter of Benjamin Tallmadge, she had married New York City attorney William Curtis Noyes in 1857. The couple owned the Benjamin Tallmadge House in Litchfield, which was inherited by their daughter, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel. Also an active member of the Historical Society, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel oversaw the completion of the Noyes Memorial Building after the death of her son, John A. Vanderpoel. She wrote two books about Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy, which her mother had attended. The library moved out to a new building in the 1960s and the Historical Society then occupied the entirety of the Noyes Memorial, which was expanded in 1989-1990. (more…)
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