William Alfred Buckingham, governor of Connecticut during the Civil War and later a U.S. Senator until his death in 1875, was born in 1804 in a house in Lebanon, which was later moved (see comment below) by his father, Deacon Samuel Buckingham, who built a new house on the location between 1808 and 1817. The new Federal-style Buckingham house was later altered through the addition of Victorianizing features, like the bay windows on the front facade.
This is the first building to be featured here which is likely not to exist very soon. John Olds is one of the founders of Manchester, who led the people of Orford parish in their quest to seperate from East Hartford in 1823, but his Revolutionary War-era house is in danger of being demolished very soon. The property, on Tolland Turnpike and Slater Road, is owned by TGM Associates, a New York developer. They own the nearby Waterford Commons apartments and hope to develop the land where the Olds House currently sits. Attempts to save the house by the town and historical society have not succeeded, so the house may soon be demolished.
Update: Although there were attempts to save it, the John Olds House was dismantled in 2012.
The Osborne Homestead Museum is adjacent to the Kellogg Environmental Center and the Osbornedale State Park in Derby. It was originally a farm house built in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1867, Wilbur Fisk Osborne married Ellen Lucy Davis and the couple moved into the house. Osborne’s father, John White Osborne, had founded a brass manufacturing company in Derby which came to dominate the eyelet manufacturing business. Wilbur F. Osborne served as president of various companies and also founded the Derby Neck Library, persuading Andrew Carnegie to assist in funding the library building’s construction. The Osbornes‘ only surviving child was Frances Eliza Osborne, who became a businesswoman, taking over her father’s responsibilities after his sudden death in 1907. In 1919, she married Waldo Stewart Kellogg, a New York architect. Starting in 1910, a Colonial Revival remodeling project began on the house, with additional detailing work done by Waldo Kellogg. The homestead now resembles a Federal-style house. Frances Osborne Kellogg continued to live in the house until her death in 1956. She had deeded her property to the State of Connecticut in 1951 and it became the Osbornedale State Park. The land was once home to the Osbornedale Dairy, which was run by Waldo Kellogg, who improved the herd after the acquisition of a prize bull. The house is open to the public as the Osborne Homestead Museum.
Counting down to the New Year makes one think of clocks and Bristol was the center of Connecticut Clock-making. One of the Bristol firms was the E.N. Welch Company, which by the later nineteenth century was in financial difficulty. In 1902, William E. Sessions, whose father owned a foundry business that had produced cases for E.N. Welch, was elected president of the company and his nephew, Albert L. Sessions, became its treasurer. By the following year, they had acquired enough stock to take over the company, renaming it the Sessions Clock Company. During this same period, A.L. Sessions, had become a partner with his father, John Henry Sessions, in the family’s trunk hardware-making business, J.H. Sessions & Son. After his father’s death in 1902, the business was then incorporated in 1905 under a special charter by the state of Connecticut, the sole owners being A.L. Sessions, his mother and his wife. William E. Sessions built the mansion, called Beleden, on Bellevue Avenue in Bristol and his nephew, A.L. Sessions, built his own mansion in 1903 on the same street. The Georgian Revival home, constructed of brick and red sandstone, is said to have been designed by a Waterbury architect who had been sent by Sessions to England to study Georgian architecture before beginning to plan the house. Known in Bristol as the “Wedding Cake” House, it later became the Town Club and is now the DuPont Funeral Home.
When Columbia’s library, called the Saxton B. Little Free Library, had outgrown its 1903 building, a farmhouse across the road, adjacent to Columbia Green and built around 1800, was completely remodeled to become the library’s new and expanded home. The house had belonged to Gladys Rice Soracchi, who had been head librarian from 1959 to 1975 (her mother, Lillian Rice, had preceded her as head librarian from 1908-1959). At one time, the house had served as inn.
Update (2-3-2019): Since this post was first written eleven years ago, “The Meeting Place” has been converted into “The History Place” and is home to the Columbia Town Historian, Town Historical Archives and the collections of the Columbia Historical Society.
The building in Columbia known as The Meeting Place was originally the town’s library. The first building of the Columbia Free Library was 120 square feet and opened in 1883. By 1903, when the library collection had outgrown this space, the old building was sold at auction and was moved to a new location to become a private home. The new library, named the Saxton B. Little Free Library after a benefactor, was used for the next 80 years, although there was no plumbing in the building and no parking space. Eventually, after all the available space had been filled, it was replaced by a third library building across the street. The former library then became The Meeting Place, where groups in town can gather. Members of the Columbia Lion’s Club had painted the exterior of the building and did some interior work when it was still the library. When it became The Meeting Place, the Lions did the landscaping of the property. Lions Club memorabilia is on display in a space inside.
The origins of the West Suffield Congregational Church go back to 1743, when Suffield‘s Second Ecclesiastical Society was formed. Its first church building was constructed the following year, on what is now the southwestern corner of the West Suffield Cemetery. A second meeting house was constructed at the intersection of Mountain Road and North Grand Street in 1795, replaced by the current church, built on the same foundation, in 1839-1840. Church parlors were added in 1897 and an educational wing in 1958.