Connor Chapel of Our Lady, University of Saint Joseph (1966)

The University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford is a Roman Catholic coeducational institution of higher education that was founded in 1932 as a college for women. The University‘s Chapel, built in 1965-1966, was the gift of Joseph and Jane Cullen Connor. Joseph passed away two weeks before the ceremonial groundbreaking, which took place on July 16, 1965. Jane broke ground and as she dug in her shovel she prayed “May all who enter this Chapel be saved.” These words are inscribed on the narthex floor inside the main doors. The Connor Chapel of Our Lady has the shape of a cross and the interior focuses on a central raised altar.

Marcia Thompson Schoolhouse (1814)

Located on the property of the Andrew Baldwin House, 63 Main Street in North Stonington, is an 1814 one-room schoolhouse. Originally located on Taugwonk Road in Stonington, the school was in operation until the 1920s. In the late twentieth century, it was moved to its current location by Fred and Alma Lampert, who owned the Baldwin House. The couple had also built a gristmill and a replica of the original blacksmith shop on the property and used the old carriage house as a museum of historical artifacts. Their property contained the foundation of the North Stonington village’s own lost schoolhouse and the 1814 school building was moved onto it. The Limperts furnished the schoolhouse based on a photograph they received from Marcia Bentley Thompson (1892-1990) that showed her on her first day as a teacher in 1911 in a one-room school in the Clarks Falls section of North Stonington. When the restoration was completed the Limperts named it the Marcia Thompson Schoolhouse.

Andrew Baldwin House (1819)

The Federal-style residence at 63 Main Street in North Stonington was built in 1819 by Andrew Baldwin, the village carpenter. The house is located next to the Shunock River and a millpond that served a nearby sawmill. At the time, North Stonington village was home to a number of mills and was called Milltown. Later, in the twentieth century, the Baldwin property was owned by Frank and Alma Limpert, who operated Limpert Realty. Starting in 1960 (they sold the property c. 1987), the couple collected artifacts and added new structures to the grounds. Frank Limpert built two dams and a sluice gate to utilize dammed water for a waterwheel he constructed and attached to a new mill addition at the rear of the building, inspired by one at the birthplace of the artist Gilbert Stewart in North Kingstown, R.I. The Limperts also brought to the grounds an 1871 mill from Ohio and an 1814 schoolhouse, the latter of which they filled with period schoolhouse furniture and objects. They tore down the termite-infested blacksmith shop and replaced it with a replica, and turned the old carriage house into a museum filled with historical artifacts. They often welcomed visits by local schoolchildren and other visitors. The mill still bears a sign that read’s “Limpert’s Gristmill.” The old carriage house was more recently home to “The Village Antiques and Collectibles.”
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Orlando Gladwin House (1830)

The house 363 Saybrook Road in the Higganum section of Haddam was built in the early 1830s by Orlando Gladwin (1805-1894), shortly after his marriage to Tamzin S. Church in 1829. A trunk made by Tamzin’s father with the initials T.S.C. was recently donated to the Haddam Historical Society. Gladwin was a carpenter who may have built the house himself and later added the many eclectic architectural details it displays today. The house was erected on land owned by his father, James Gladwin. After his father died in 1855, Orlando Gladwin mortgaged the house to his brother, Erasmus, a shipbuilder.

Reuben Barber House (1775)

The house at 117 Barbourtown Road in Canton was erected in 1775 by Reuben Barber (1751-1825), who served in the Revolutionary War. Barber donated the land for the Canton Center Cemetery, across the road from his house, and was the first person to be buried there. Reuben‘s son, Sadosa Barber, lived in the basement while his house nearby was being built. He quarried the stone to build the stairway outside. In 1820, Loin Humphrey remodeled and repaired the house for his son, Lorin Harmon Humphrey.

Guilford Institute (1855)

The stone building at 120 North Fair Street in Guilford was used as a school from 1855 until 1936. It was established as the Guilford Institute, as related in The History of Guilford, Connecticut (1877), by Ralph D. Smith:

Mrs. Sarah Griffing, widow of Hon. Nathaniel Griffing, deeded August 21, 1854, to E. Edwin Hall, Henry W. Chittenden, Simeon B. Chittenden, Alvan Talcott, Abraham C. Baldwin, Ralph D. Smith and Sherman Graves (who had been created a body politic under the name and style of The Trustees of the Guilford Institute), a piece of land situated in Guilford, as also the sum of ten thousand dollars, “for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a school in said Guilford of a higher order than the district or common school.” She states, in the deed, “whereas my wish is that the said school should in no sense be regarded as a sectarian institution but be open alike to all who wish to enjoy its advantages, and on the same terms, yet as it must necessarily be under some government and control, and as more harmony will be likely to prevail if all the directors or trustees are of the same religious views, my wish is that they should be of the denomination to which I belong, to wit, of the Congregational order and of that class designated and known at the present day as Orthodox or Trinitarian, of which the pastor of the First church in Guilford shall always be one, should he hold such religious views or belief.” She also expresses the wish that “the Bible should always be used in said school as the foundation of all education for usefulness or happiness.”

To this donation was added another of ten thousand dollars, by Hon. Simeon B. Chittenden, Brooklyn, N. Y., October 12th, 1855.

The corner stone of the building for the accommodation of the institute was laid September 13, 1854, on which occasion an address was delivered by Rev. T. D. P. Stone of the Normal school at Norwich, Conn. The building being completed, the first term of the institute was opened September 3, 1855, with suitable public exercises, and addresses by Rev. E. Edwin Hall, S. B. Chittenden, and others.

In September 1872, by an arrangement with the Union school district of Guilford, its scholars were admitted to the privileges of the institute free. In 1875 the institute failing to receive any interest on certain bonds constituting their investments, the trustees gave permission to the union district to occupy the building for a high school, which arrangement continues to the present time.

In 1886, the Guilford Institute became a taxpayer-funded free public high school. The building continued as the high school until 1936 when a new Guilford High School was built (now used as a middle school since the current high school building opened in 2015). The former Guilford Institute building was then vacant for time, but later was the home of The Shoreline Times newspaper for twenty years. After being left vacant again in 2008, the building was recently converted into condominiums called The Lofts at Griffing Square