Bishop-Woodward House (1790)

The Bishop-Woodward House, at 205 Center Street in Wolcott was built in 1790 for Bnai Bishop, who ran an adjacent store. Bishop also accommodated travelers in his house and there was a stable to the rear. It was later the home of Reverend Israel B. Woodward (1767-1810), the second minister of Wolcott‘s Congregational Church, who also ran a school in the house for young men training for the ministry. According to John Warner Barber in his Connecticut Historical Collections, Rev. Woodward,

though somewhat eccentric in some parts of his conduct, was a person of superior intelligence and esteemed by his parishioners. A thanksgiving sermon of his is recollected, in which he compared the state of Connecticut to the land of Canaan. In one respect, he mentioned, there was a striking similarity; the land of Canaan was rocky, this was very much the case with Connecticut, at least with that part of it in which Wolcott was situated.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the house was home to Adelbert Woods, Wolcott’s last postmaster.

Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (1926)

Thirty years before building their International Style complex in Bloomfied in 1957, the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company was headquartered in a Renaissance Revival-style building at 55 Elm Street in Hartford. Built in 1926 and designed by James Gamble Rogers, the building was inspired by the Medici-Riccardi Palace in Florence, Italy. Owned by other insurance companies after 1958, the building now houses state offices.

William Bouton House (1838)

Between 1838 and 1843, David Smith, a housewright from Greenfield Hill, built eight (mostly multi-family) houses along a street he had just opened up: Smith’s Lane (now Calderwood Court) in Black Rock, Bridgeport. This planned development also included a carriage factory and a school. The houses were transitional between the Federal and Greek Revival styles. The first of the houses to be built, in 1838, was the the William Bouton House at 4 (aka 25) Calderwood Court. The front porch is a twentieth-century addition.

Treadwell (or Pettibone) House (1810)

The Treadwell House (also known as the Pettibone House) faces the triangular Burlington Green, between Spielman Highway and the George Washington Turnpike. The position taken in the house’s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 is that it was built between 1805 and 1816 by John P. Treadwell, who was the 21st governor of Connecticut from 1809 to 1811. The Burlington Historical Society has argued that it was built by Abraham Pettibone, not Treadwell, and should be known as the Pettibone House. The main facade of the house faces south, while the elaborate doorway on the west side is actually not an entrance at all, but is a false door. It is either an original feature of the house or was built quite early in the house’s existence. In its long history, the house has been owned by two ministers (Erastus Clapp and Erastus Scranton) and two town clerks (John A. Reeve and then his son, Arthur J. Reeve). In 1970, the house was bought by the town for use as town offices. Since 1980, it has been used as a branch banking office.

St. Bernard Catholic Church, Rockville (1904)

The first Catholic Mass in Rockville (Vernon) was celebrated by fifteen Catholics in a house owned by the Paper Mill Company. St. Bernard’s Parish was established in Rockville in 1854 and the first church was completed in 1856. The church was destroyed by fire in 1904 and the cornerstone for the present church was laid five months later. The new church was dedicated on September 20, 1908. Built on a prominent site on Saint Bernard Terrace, the church was designed by Joseph A. Jackson, who had earlier designed the parish school in 1895.