New Canaan Library (1913)

The New Canaan Library was founded by volunteers in 1877 and received its first annual grant from the town in 1895. Housed for many years in a reading room on Elm Street, the library moved to a new building at 151 Main Street in 1913. Designed by Alfred H. Taylor of New York and New Canaan, the library is constructed of irregular fieldstone blocks. The building was expanded in 1937 and 1952 and the Lapham Wing was added in 1979. Due to increasing usage, the library is seeking to to replace its aging facilities.

St. Peter’s-Trinity Church, Thomaston (1871)

Trinity Episcopal Church, on Main Street in Thomaston, was built in two sections in 1871 and 1880. Representing the transition from the Gothic Revival to the Stick style (with board-and-batten siding, decorative gable bargeboards and a pyramidal steeple) it was built to the designs of Richard M. Upjohn, architect of the Connecticut State Capitol Building. Trinity had begun as a mission of the Episcopal Church in Plymouth (founded in 1740) and became an independent parish in 1869. Since 1996, the church has been St. Peter’s-Trinity Church, formed through a merger of St. Peter’s Church, Plymouth and and Trinity Parish, Thomaston.

Goodwin Stoddard House (1877)

The house at 499 Washington Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1877 for attorney Goodwin Stoddard. The house’s Victorian design has been compromised by the large modern addition which hides most of the original front of the building below the roof-line. Formerly the Spadaccino Funeral Home, the building is now owned by the Bridgeport Apostolic Church. According to Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Connecticut Biography (1917):

Goodwin Stoddard, of Bridgeport, son of Joseph and Sophia (Buddington) Stoddard, was born in Bethany, New Haven county, Connecticut, April 2, 1847. His education was completed at the University of Albany, where he was graduated in 1867, and where also he pursued his professional studies. He was admitted to the bar in New York State and Connecticut in 1868. He began practice in 1868 and immediately engaged in the trial of causes in Fairfield and adjacent counties, where he became one of the most eminent lawyers of the Connecticut bar. He was connected with many of the important cases, and served an important and influential clientele. Mr. Stoddard died July 26, 1909.

Mr. Stoddard married, October 21, 1875, Julia E. Sanford, born October 20, 1855, daughter of Edwin G. and Emily Adeline Sanford, of Bridgeport. They were the parents of two sons, Sanford and Henry B.

Granby Grange Hall (1866)

The building which today serves as the hall for Granby Grange No. 5 was built just after the Civil War (c. 1866?) as a one-room schoolhouse. In 1902, the town hall moved into the building after an earlier town hall burned down. In 1946, the Granby Grange bought the building from the town and moved it 150 feet south to its current location, at 212 North Granby Road, across from the First Congregational Church. The Granby Grange was first established in 1875, but in 1890 a group purchase of bad seeds led to its disbandment. It was reestablished in 1926 and has continued ever since.