Monroe Congregational Church (1847)

In 1762, residents of New Startford, now Monroe, successfully petitioned the State Legislature to establish a new parish. Previously, residents had made the long journey to Huntington (now Shelton) for worship. A meeting house, for use during the winter, had previously been built on Moose Hill Road. Once the New Stratford Ecclesiastical Society was formed, a new meeting house was built in 1766 on what is now Monroe Green. This was replaced by the current Monroe Congregational Church, built just to the north, in 1847. In 1985-1986, the church was expanded and the interior was restored as closely as possible to its nineteenth-century appearance.

Benedict-Miller House (1879)

Dominating the ridge of Hillside Avenue, overlooking Waterbury, is the enormous mansion known as the Benedict-Miller House. A Queen Anne/Stick style extravaganza of gables, crisscross and diagonal boards and decorative railings, balustrades, braces and brackets, the house was built by the firm of Palliser, Palliser & Co. of Bridgeport for Charles Benedict. The brothers, George and Charles Palliser, specialized in Gothic and Queen Anne cottages and designed houses for P.T. Barnum. Benedict was president of the Benedict & Burnham Company, once the largest manufacturers of brass and copper appliances and fixtures in the country, and served as mayor of Waterbury in 1859-1860. Next to Benedict’s house, and once sharing with it a private drive, is another grand Stick-style mansion built for Benedict’s sister, Mary Mitchell. After Benedict’s death, in 1881, his house was owned by Charles Miller, of the Miller & Peck department store. The Benedict-Miller property was part of UCONN’s Waterbury branch campus from 1942 until 2004, when it was sold to Yeshiva Gedolah, a school for Orthodox Jews.

36 Lewis Street, Hartford (1840)

The house at 36 Lewis Street in Hartford, like that at 24 Lewis Street, was most likely built around 1840 by the builder, Austin Daniels. The houses originally resembled each other, but while no. 24 retains a Greek Revival pediment in the gable end facing the street, no. 36 was altered around 1860 to fit the newly popular Italianate style. The gable roof was replaced with a low-pitched hip roof with overhanging eaves, raised to allow the placement of small windows just below the roof on the two sides. The wide front porch is also an Italianate addition. By the 1950s, the house was the last building on Lewis Street to remain a private residence, but later became a restaurant. The property is currently available for rent.

Huntington Street Baptist Church (1843)

The Greek Revival-style Huntington Street Baptist Church in New London was built in 1843 and was originally a Universalist church. It was designed and built by John Bishop, a member of the church, who was inspired the book, The Beauties of Modern Architecture (1835), by Minard LaFever, a prominent architect of churches in the early nineteenth century. Financial difficulties led the Universalists to sell the church in 1849 to a Baptist congregation. As explained in Frances Manwaring Caulkins‘s History of New London (1860):

A third Baptist church was constituted March 14th, 1849, by a division of one hundred and eighty-five members from the first church. This society purchased the brick church in Huntington Street, built six years previous by the Universalist society, for $12,000, and dedicated it as their house of worship, March 29th, 1849. Sermon by Rev. J. S. Swan, who was the chief mover in the enterprise, founder and pastor of the church. In 1850, the number of members was three hundred and eleven.

Jabez Smith Swan was a prominent preacher and hymnist (pdf link)