Dr. Edward Fitzgerald House (1901)

The Colonial Revival house at 480 East Washington Avenue in East Bridgeport was built in 1901 (or perhaps as early as 1893). It was the home and office of Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, who was appointed medical examiner in the city in 1924. In the 1970s, the house was bequeathed to the United Way of Eastern Fairfield County by Dr. Fitzgerald’s widow and was then sold to an immigrant resettlement agency. By the 1980s, many Victorian-era homes in the Washington Park neighborhood were in bad condition and abandoned as drugs and crime dominated the neighborhood. In 1989, the house’s owner was beaten over the head with a crowbar and tied up by a burglar, but managed to free himself and shoot the intruder three times. In 1995, the house was eventually foreclosed on and sold to investors who were anticipating the opening of a casino nearby that was never built. The house was then acquired by the Washington Park Association and in 1999 was the first of ten properties in the neighborhood to undergo restoration by the Association in a revitalization project supported by grants, a loan and Federal tax credits.

Old Town Hall, Killingworth (1881)

Behind the Congregational Church in Killingworth is a building known as the Old Town Hall. It was built in 1881, as described by William H. Buell in the chapter on Killingworth in the History of Middlesex County, Connecticut, published in 1884:

Several of the farmers of Killingworth, about eight years since, formed themselves into an association […]. In 1880, Deacon L. L. Nettleton, Washington E. Griswold, R. P. Stevens, Francis Turner, Nathan H. Evarts, and all others who had subscribed to the articles of association, petitioned the Legislature that they be constituted a body politic and corporate by the name of the “Killingworth Agricultural Society.” The petition was granted, the society organized under their charter […]

As the society had no building in which to hold their meetings and their fairs, they at once made arrangements to build an Agricultural Hall, and to this end appropriated their share of the State bounty to agricultural societies towards paying the expenses of the building their hall. But some evil minded persons brought the subject before the Legislature, and the society was debarred from having any further benefit of it for that purpose, and they, instead of letting the State have it, divided it among the rest of the agricultural societies. How rich it must have made them!

But the hall was built, and it is 33 by 56 feet, with basement, and by dint of perseverance and their annual fairs (without any further State aid), the society have paid their bills. The basement is now thoroughly cemented, and the society expect to pay this bill as they have their former ones.

Unfortunately, the Agricultural Society later failed and the building was sold in 1910 to the Killingworth Grange. The building became the Town Hall when the town purchased it from the Grange in 1923 for $1.00, with the Grange reserving the right to have its meeting in the building for a reasonable rental fee. In 1965, the town bought a new building to use as Town Hall and in 1966 sold the old Town Hall to the Congregational Church. Today, the restored building is used for various public functions, performances and events.

Former Methodist Church, Coventry (1867)

Coventry was the birthplace of Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834), the famous itinerant Methodist preacher and major figure of the Second Great Awakening. The earliest records of a Methodist Society in town date to 1822, but there were no doubt Methodist meetings in town before then. The town’s first Methodist church was built in the 1840s, in what is now Patriot’s Park. In 1867, it was replaced with a new Italianate-style church, erected on Main Street in South Coventry. The church lost its steeple in the 1938 hurricane and it was never replaced. By 1944, membership in the church had dwindled such that the remaining parishioners could no longer maintain the building. In 1949, they merged with the Bolton Methodist Church. The former Coventry Methodist Church was used for a number of years as a community house for meetings and gatherings and in the 1990s contained antiques stores. In 2003, it was refurbished as retail space.

St. James Episcopal Church, Haddam (1873)

St. James Episcopal Church is located at the intersection of Killingworth and Ponsett roads in Haddam. A Carpenter Gothic building, Saint James’s was constructed between 1871 and 1873. The church was organized by Rev. William Clark Knowles, who had begun a Sunday School in his home on Hubbard Road in 1861 and held the first service of the Ponsett Episcopal Church around 1866. For thirty-six years, Rev. Knowles served as pastor of both St. James’s and Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Killingworth. A resident of the Haddam village of Ponsett until his death in 1933, at the age of 92, Rev. Knowles was the author of By Gone Days of Ponsett, published in 1914.

Avery Lamb House (1841)

Prospect Street in New London is notable for being a well-preserved example of a mid-nineteenth century streetscape, with houses in the Greek Revival style predominating. Sabin Smith laid out Prospect Street in 1837 and then proceeded to sell his holdings. In 1841, Avery Lamb, a cooper, hired builder Lewis Crandall to build two houses, at nos. 16 and 20. Lamb sold the former, but the latter, 20 Prospect Street, became his own house. (Note: the sign on the house itself displays a date of 1836.) (more…)

Allen Building, Torrington (1930)

The Allen Building in Torrington is an Art Deco commercial structure, occupying a prominent location, at the corner of Main and East Main Streets in the city’s downtown. The building, designed by Torrington architect William E. Hunt (who designed other art deco buildings in Torrington), was constructed in two sections. First came the north part, on Main Street, in 1930. It was built next door to the Allen House, a wood-frame hotel erected in the nineteenth century. After the hotel was damaged in a 1934 fire, it was demolished and replaced, in 1935, by an extension of the Allen Building that wraps around the corner of East Main Street.

Alsop-Weeks House (1780)

At 202 Washington Street in Middletown is a house that has gone through a number of stylistic changes over two centuries. Known as the Wetmore-Weeks or Alsop-Weeks House, it was built around 1780 by Chauncey Whittlesey, wealthy merchant and supporter of the American Revolution. The house was later owned by Charles R. Alsop, developer of the now rare Alsop Pocket percussion revolver. Alsop, who also served as mayor of Middletown (1843-1846) and state senator (1855), made alterations to the house around 1840, remodeling the Georgian-style building in the then-popular Gothic Revival style. Later in the nineteenth century, the Atwater family remodeled the interior of the house in the neo-Federal style. They sold it to Frank B. Weeks, who had just served as governor of Connecticut from 1909 to 1911. After his term, Weeks became a trustee of Wesleyan and bequeathed the house to the University at his death in 1935. The house has since been a student residence. A rear addition was constructed in 1966.