Igreja Adventista do Sétimo Dia (1883)

Built in 1883, the church at 239 Greenwood Avenue in Bethel was St. Mary’s Catholic Church for 109 years. The following excerpts are taken from the History of the Diocese of Hartford (1900), by James H. O’Donnell,

The Rev. M. P. Lawlor was the celebrant of the first Mass said in Bethel. The historic event took place on January 8, 1882, in the Town Hall, in the presence of about 400 persons. In the spring of the same year the congregation secured Fisher’s Hall, in which Mass was said until the church was completed. Before this year the Catholics of Bethel attended Mass at St. Peter’s church, Danbury. [p. 264]

In 1881, it was determined to separate the Catholics of Bethel and Grassy Plain district from the mother church at Danbury. Accordingly, a building committee, comprising Thomas Doran, Michael Brauneis and Owen Murray, was appointed, and the work of securing funds for the erection of a new church was auspiciously and successfully carried on. Sufficient money having been collected to guarantee beginning the work, the construction of the church was entered upon with vigor and enthusiasm. The corner-stone was laid on Sunday, September 17, 1882, by Bishop McMahon. [p.265]

In April, 1883, Bethel was separated from the jurisdiction of Danbury and organized into a separate parish, with the Rev. M. Byrne as the first pastor. Father Byrne died after a successful, though brief, pastorate. The main altar of St. Mary’s church was donated by his mother as a memorial of her son. [p. 264]

The ceremony of dedication took place on Sunday, September 16, 1883, Father Byrne, being pastor. Bishop McMahon officiated. [. . .] The church is a brick edifice, Gothic in style with the tower on the side. It is 49 x 88 feet. The basement wall is granite, and the roof imitation clerestory. All the windows are of beautiful stained glass and bear the names of the donors. The distance from the ground to the top of the cross is 138 feet. The seating capacity of the church is 475. [p.265]

The Rev. Patrick O’Connell succeeded Father Byrne in November, 1883. His period of service was fifteen years. Evidences of his sacerdotal zeal are everywhere visible. The works that signalized his administration were the purchase of the rectory and lot on which it stands, and a cemetery on the line of the Danbury and Norwalk railroad. He furnished the church with a pipe organ and a bell for the tower; erected three sets of granite steps for the entrances of the church; built an expensive property line wall, laid the concrete walks, and graded and beautified the grounds—works which bear testimony to his activity and to the generosity of the parishioners. [p. 264]

In 1992, St. Mary’s moved to a new church on Dodgingtown Road and the building on Greenwood Avenue was sold to the Church of Bethel. It was sold again in 2011 to the Danbury Luso-Brasileira Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Ezra Kelsey House (1815)

The house at 372 Saybrook Road in Higganum in Haddam was built in 1815 by Ezra Kelsey (1789-1881), a blacksmith whose shop was at Higganum Landing, where he supplied the shipbuilding industry. The house’s rear ell, which was moved from the edge of the Connecticut River, may date eighteenth century. The house remained in the Kelsey family until 1964. Ezra’s grandson, Horatio Nelson Kelsey, began using the house as a summer home in 1917 and his daughter, Burnette Kelsey (1898-1988), ran Miss Kelsey’s kindergarten in the house from the 1940s to the early 1960s. She sold the house to Richard and Marjorie DeBold, who have maintained such features as the circa-1820 Chinese-themed dining room wallpaper and the beam by the front door, where members of the Kelsey family marked their heights for several generations.

Stephen Main House (1781)

The house at 1 Wyassup Road in North Stonington, known as the Stephen Main Homestead, is the headquarters of the North Stonington Historical Society. Built in 1781, the house was first owned by Luther Avery, who ran Avery Mills in town. Stephen Main bought the house in 1861. Born in North Stonington in 1805, Main went to New York City at age seventeen. There he ran a successful butter stall and became an extensive dealer in real estate. He returned to North Stonington in 1856 and purchased a sawmill and gristmill, located at the site of the lower dam on the Shunock River. He apparently constructed the present dam about 1850. The house was later owned by Fred Stewart Greene, an artist who was born in North Stonington, but was raised in Westerly, RI, where he later had his art studio. From 1911-1923, Greene operated an art school at Greene Gables cottage on the Hewitt Farm (in 2017 the town voted to demolish the cottage, which had been deemed unsafe). The North Stonington Historical Society, founded in 1970, acquired the Stephen Main House from Greene’s heirs in 1980.

Nelson Peck House (1851)

The house at 104 Peck Road in Bethany was erected sometime before 1851, at which time it was the property of Noyes Hotchkiss (1814-1866). It was acquired in 1867 by Justus Peck (1807-1885) for his son, Harry French Peck (died 1916), a blacksmith who made ox yokes and wagons (the house was conveyed by Justus to Harry in 1870). Harry’s son Nelson Justus Peck (died 1958) was born in the house in 1874 and the residence is named after him in the 1972 book Bethany’s Old Houses and Community Buildings, by Alice Bice Bunton.

Squires-Stanton House (1800)

Built as a Federal-style residence around 1800 by Phineas Squires, the house at 322 Main Street in Durham was later transformed (circa 1870) with alterations in the Italianate style. These include projecting eves with brackets, a painted string course connecting the pedimented lintels over the first story windows, and a hip-roofed portico. In 1817, the house was acquired by James Rose, a farmer who died in 1839. It was then sold to Abner Newton, Jr. who sold it in 1840 to Enos Rogers, a wealthy merchant of North Madison and a founder of the Merriam Manufacturing Company. His daughter Dorliska married her first cousin, Simeon S. Scranton. The house passed to the couple upon Rogers death. As described in a biography of their son, Charles Loveland Scranton, in Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1901):

Simeon Sereno Scranton engaged in the business of book publishing at Hartford, Conn., in which subsequently he associated with him his son, Charles L. The firm of S. S. Scranton & Co. did an extensive business as book publishers. Among the works that issued from their press were: J. T. Headley’s History of the Civil War, Richardson’s “Field, Dungeon, and Escape,” Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Life and Epistles of Saint Paul, James Fawcett’s Commentary on the Bible, besides many others equally well known. The elder Mr. Scranton, finally selling his interest in the business, retired and spent his last days in Durham, Conn., where he died in 1892, at the age of sixty-nine years. His wife, whose maiden name was Dorliska Rogers, was born in Madison, Conn., and was a daughter of Enos Rogers. She was the mother of thirteen children, of whom ten grew to maturity.

Charles L. Scranton sold the house to John Southmayd in 1902. It remained in the Southmayd family until 1936, when it passed to the Francis family. (more…)

John Hudson House (1791)

The house at 26 Main Street in Old Mystic, Stonington was built c. 1791 by John Hudson, a tanner, on land he had acquired from Eleazer Williams in 1786. This transaction also included the gristmill across the street, at the head of the Mystic River. After his death in 1808, his son Phineas Hudson, continued the tanning business and inherited the house and mill, excepting the dower rights (1/3 of the house) of John’s widow, Mary. Two years before his death in 1811, Phineas (possibly ailing or under financial strain) sold the mill to his daughter Mary‘s father-in-law, Simon Avery. Mary bought the works back twenty-one years later. Mary married two Avery brothers. According to The Groton Avery Clan (1912), by Elroy McKendree Avery and Catharine Hitchcock Tilden Avery,

[Robert Nieles Avery] was b. Sept. 1, 1785, at Groton; m. June 19, 1806, at Groton, Mary (Polly) Hudson, dau. of Phineas and Margaret Hudson. She was b. Sept. 2, 1787, at Groton. He was a sea captain, and later a farmer. He was killed by the caving in of a sand bank, June 10, 1814. His widow m. 2d, Joseph Swan Avery, a brother of her husband. She d. Feb. 8, 1855, at Mystic.

[Joseph Swan Avery] was b. Oct., 1787, at Groton; m. Mrs. Mary (Hudson) Avery, dau. of Phineas and Margaret Hudson, and widow of his brother, Robert Niles Avery. She was b. Sept. 2, 1787, at Groton. He was a successful merchant and ship owner. She d. Feb. 8, 1855; he d. Nov. 10, 1865, both at Groton.

In 1816, Phineas’ heirs sold the house (except for Mary’s dower rights) to Jasper Latham, who added a shoe shop to the property. The house (now with the shop) was sold again in 1829.