The house at 1200 Main Street in Glastonbury was built c. 1770 by Samuel Rice. His niece, Anna Cornwall (1778-1855), ran a school for girls in the house in the nineteenth century. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Cornwall, who operated a textile mill in Chatham. A number of nineteenth century samplers survive that share characteristics indicating they were all produced by Miss Cornwall’s students.
The Catholic parish of St. Peter’s in Danbury was established in 1851 at a time when many Catholic immigrants who were settling in the area. It was the first Catholic parish in northern Fairfield county and parishioners would walk ten miles from surrounding towns to attend Mass. For a few months in 1851 the parish held services in the court house, but soon acquired a former Universalist church building at the corner of Main and Wooster Streets. In the late 1850s, the parish purchased a lot on Main Street that included a former Congregational church, the church building itself being officially purchased in 1860. That church was renovated for Catholic services and used until a new church was completed. As described in James H. O’Donnell’s History of the Diocese of Hartford (1900) [St. Peter’s is now in the Diocese of Bridgeport]:
The Rev. Philip Sheridan followed Dr. [Ambrose] Manahan in 1865. Four years after his arrival he conceived the design of erecting a Gothic stone church which would not only be an architectural ornament to the town, but a temple worthy of the growing importance of the parish. To this end he removed the pastoral residence to the rear of the lot on the southwest corner of Main street, and on its site began the foundations of the new church. The soil here was sandy and humid, and great difficulty was experienced in securing a solid bed for the foundations. In some places the builders were obliged to grout to the depth of twenty-seven feet. The difficulties were overcome, however, but at an expenditure of nearly $4000. The corner-stone was laid on Sunday, August 28, 1870
Work on the church, designed in the Gothic Revival style by the architectural firm of Keely and Murphy, was delayed by the Panic of 1873, but the building, located at 119 Main Street, was dedicated on December 13, 1875.
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The Danbury Armory at 54 West Street in Danbury was built in 1912-1913. The design of the building, by New London architect James S. Duffy in association with architect and civil engineer Morris B. Payne, who was also an officer in the National Guard, represented a shift away from the castellated appearance of recently constructed armories, like those in Meriden and Willimantic, to a more streamlined look. The building remained an active state military facility, over the years housing artillery and infantry units, until the state transferred ownership in 1993 to Western Connecticut State University, which then used the building for storage. In 2011, the Connecticut Institute for Communities purchased the building, which now houses the Harambee Youth Center.
In about 1892, Mary Frances Clark Hoppin (1842–1934) built a mansion in Pomfret called Courtlands. She was the widow of Dr. Courtland Hoppin (1834–1876) of Providence, Rhode Island, and was the daughter of Joseph Washington Clark, a wealthy Boston investor, who had a summer home in Pomfret. She had earlier lived in a house she had built in Pomfret after her husband died. She later gave that home to the Pomfret School, where it is now Robinson House, the school’s admissions office. After her death, Courtlands became St. Robert’s Hall, a Jesuit monastery and seminary, dedicated in December 1935. Since 1974, the mansion and 114-acre estate have been home to the New England Laborers’ Training Academy, with an address of 37 Deerfield Road in Pomfret.
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Joseph Sage built the house at 532 Main Street in Portland when he sold his earlier home, the Giles Hall House at 643 Main Street, to his son.
The Greek Revival house at 585 Main Street in Portland was built in the 1840s (possibly 1847). It was originally the home of Stephen H. White. This may be the Stephen H. White, son of George White, who is described in the Memorials of Elder John White (1860), by Allyn S. Kellogg, page 206 as
born in Portland, Dec. 15, 1820. He resides there, and is a farmer and carpenter.
He married twice, first in 1844 to Sarah Risley of Glastonbury (died 1846); second in 1850 to Almira W. Ufford of Portland.
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The house at 15 Pearl Street in Middletown was built in either 1838 or 1839, at a time when the street was experiencing development as a neighborhood for the urban middleclass of tradespeople and small business owners. It was erected by George E. Barrows, who had a joiner’s shop on the property and may have contributed his skills to the construction. From 1851 to 1883, it was the home of Charles H. Pelton, a printer who had worked with Horace Greeley in New York. The house remained in the Pelton family until 1915.
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