Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Manchester (1956)

The first St. Mary’s Church in Manchester was organized in 1844, but the parish encountered financial difficulties and was dissolved in 1847. The members reestablished their church as an Episcopal parish in 1851, but the church again closed in 1869. Regular services were eventually reestablished in 1874 and on June 26, 1882, the cornerstone was laid for a new church on Church Street on land donated by the Cheney Brothers of the famous South Manchester silk mills. The church was consecrated on June 7, 1884. A new and larger church was planned in the 1920s, but the Great Depression slowed financing of the project. In 1953, ground was eventually broken for a new church, which was dedicated on September 5, 1956. The church faces Park Street and is connected to the old 1884 church, now called Resurrection Chapel, which was renovated in 2009 and has five Tiffany stained glass windows.

Orrin Preston Store (1840)

The building at 171 East Plymouth Road in East Plymouth was built c. 1840-1860 as a house and store by merchant Orrin Preston. The store, which also used space in the back of the old Scoville House next door at 175 East Plymouth Road, was in operation through the end of the nineteenth century.

Josiah Wolcott House (1754)

Suggested dates for the construction of the house at 329 Wolcott Hill Road in Wethersfield have included 1734, 1754, 1764 and 1775. It is said that the nails used in building the house were made by prisoners at Old Newgate Prison. The house, which is named after Josiah Wolcott, has overhangs with dentil molding above both floors. Horace Wells, who pioneered the use of anesthesia (using nitrous oxide) in dentistry, lived in the house for a time in the 1840s [or is this a confusion with another Horace Wells (1789-1853), son of Thomas Wells?]. The Hart Seed Company began in this house in 1892 when Charles C. Hart started packaging seeds in the kitchen. In 1957 the house was purchased by Glenn Weaver, a professor of history at Trinity College who wrote a history of Hartford. His wife Emojean was a teacher at Wethersfield High School.

Harry L. Beach House (1885)

Greatly altered since its construction c. 1885, the house at 106 Prospect Place in Bristol is the work of builder-architect Joel T. Case. Now a multi-family home, it is listed in the nomination for the Federal Hill Historic District as the Harry L. Beach House. This is likely Henry L. Beach (1839-1922), who worked for his brother-in-law Edward Ingraham as superintendent at the E. Ingraham Clock Company.

Honan Funeral Home (1790)

The house at 58 Main Street in Newtown was built c. 1790 and is now the Honan Funeral Home. In 1912, the house was purchased by William A. Honan, Sr., who had just married Margaret Hayes of Sandy Hook. It was then a two-family house, with the Honan family residing in one half and renting the other half. Honan had established his undertaking business in 1903 and stored his embalming and funeral equipment in a garage and storage rooms behind the house. He tore down the garage in 1938 and erected a new building for his funeral home, with the business on the first floor and a rental apartment on the second floor. Honen died in 1966 and in 1969 his son, William Honan, Jr, moved the funeral home into the house at 58 Main Street. He made extensive renovations to the building and the new funeral home reopened in 1970. The current Funeral Director of the three-generation business is Daniel T. Honan.

40 Main Street, Newtown (1893)

An article last Spring (April 24, 2017) in the Newtown Bee [“New Owner Brings New Life To 40 Main Street,” by Kendra Bobowick] notes the recent renovation of an 1893 Queen Anne-style Victorian house. Around 1905, Charles H. Northrop, town treasurer, lived in the house. He was accused of embezzlement and hung himself in the house’s foyer. From 1910 into the 1920s, the house was used by the local telephone exchange. The house was used as a law office from the 1940s through 2001.

Balcony House (1820)

Known locally as the “Balcony House,” the residence at 34 Main Street in Newtown is located just south of Trinity Episcopal Church. The nomination for the Newtown Borough Historic District gives the mansard-roofed house a date of c. 1870, but the real estate websites (linked above) give a date of c. 1820. Perhaps it was built around 1820 and updated in the Second Empire style around 1870? Until his death in 1950, it was the home of Arthur Treat Nettleton, who became treasurer of the Newtown Savings Bank in 1898 and its president in 1938. The picture above was taken back in 2010, when it was painted in darker colors than at present.