According to the website of the Bakerville Library in New Hartford, the building that houses the library was built in 1834. The building was previously used as the Bakerville School. The volume in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series on New Hartford (by Margaret L. Lavoe, 2002) explains that the Bakerville Academy opened in 1873 (replacing an earlier Bakerville schoolhouse on the site) and that research was underway to determine the origin of the building. According to another book published by Arcadia, Connecticut Schoolhouses Through Time (2017), by Melinda K. Elliott, the school was started in 1824 and for a time the upstairs was used by the school and the downstairs was used for meetings and social events. Eventually, both floors would be used as classroom space. Next door was the Bakerville Methodist Church. The church’s horse sheds were attached to the rear of the school building, but they were eventually removed because children would climb out of the second-floor schoolroom onto the shed’s roof. The church burned down in 1954 (a new church was erected in 1960). The school closed when the Bakerville Consolidated School was built in 1941-1942. The Bakerville Library, started in 1949, moved into the former school building in 1951.
Happy Thanksgiving!According to the History of New Haven County, Vol. I (1892), by John L. Rockey, in 1888 Wallingford’s Fire Department “had 64 men, exclusive of its three officers, belonging to the Wallingford Hose Company, No. 1; the Wallace Hose Company, No. 2, with a house on the Plains; and the Simpson Hook and Ladder Company, No. 1.” In 1895, a new Wallace Hose House was erected at 9 South Cherry Street, at the corner of Quinnipiac Street, on land donated by Robert Wallace (1815-1892), a prominent silverware manufacturer. Today the building is used as office space.
The house at 638 Main Street in Portland was most likely built sometime between c. 1855-1859. It was originally the home of Samuel Buckingham, a merchant (possibly the Samuel Buckingham who was born in 1808 and died in 1870). The former Buckingham Store, also built in the 1850s and now home to the Gildersleeve Sprit Shop, is located next door at 642-644 Main Street. Next door to that, at the corner of Indian Hill Avenue, is the former Gildersleeve Store, 646 Main Street, built in 1855.
I’ve just completed an index (by address) for the 16 buildings I’ve featured on this site that are in the Town of Trumbull. The most recent of these buildings is featured in today’s post: the Trumbull Town Hall. I’ve previously featured the Helen Plumb Building in Trumbull, which served as town hall from 1883 to 1957. In that year, the new Town Hall, pictured above, opened at 5866 Main Street. Previously this had been the site of the Aaron Sherwood Homestead, built in 1880. The house was later the home of Dr. Clarence Atkins, a dentist, and was then used as a convalescent home called the Hillcrest Hygienic Lodge.
At 80 Central Avenue in East Hartford is a Queen Anne-style house. Its original facade now lies behind the later additions of a two-story entry porch and an octagonal bay and porch. The house was erected in 1891 on a property that R.W. Roberts, who owned several lots on Central Avenue, had sold to Daniel W. Green in 1889. Green, born in 1857 and originally from Sumner, Oxford County, Maine, was a contractor and builder. According to Vol. I of the Commemorative Biographical Record of Hartford County, Connecticut (1901):
Daniel W. Green was educated in the common schools of his native district, also at the South Paris (Maine) High School, and after leaving school, at the age of sixteen years, on account of weakened eyes brought about by typhoid fever, he worked in various mills until about 1882, when he went to Crescent City, Putnam Co., Fla. There he learned the carpenter’s trade, worked there five years, and then returned to Connecticut, worked one year for Cheney Brothers, in Manchester, next moved to East Hartford worked for W. J. Driggs, contractor and builder, for nine years, and in 1896 began contracting and building on his own account, in which he has met with success—a success due to his pains-taking endeavor to please his patrons. On Sept. 19, 1883, Mr. Green married Miss Emma F. Wetherell, a native of South Manchester, born April 27, 1861 [. . . .]
To the marriage of Daniel W. Green and wife have been born two children: Ernest Carlton, in Crescent City, Fla., Sept. 8, 1886, and Marian Lucille, Oct. 28, 1888, in South Manchester. Mr. Green and his family attend the Congregational Church, of which Mrs. Green has long been a conscientious member. In politics Mr. Green is inclined to Democracy, but does not always cast his vote for that party; fraternally he is a member of Wadsworth Council, No. 39, O.U.A.M., of Manchester. Through his industry, skill, and industrious habits, Mr. Green has gained a comfortable home, which he built in 1891, on a lot purchased from Watson Roberts. He is a genial, whole-souled gentleman, and he and his wife, with their two bright children, form a happy family, greatly respected by all who know them.
You must be logged in to post a comment.