Rev. William Case House (1826)

The house at 30 Liberty Street in Chester was erected soon after Rev. William Case acquired the property in 1826. Rev. Case both lived in and ran a private school in the house. As described in Amos Sheffield Chesebrough and Alexander Hall’s Historical Sketch of the Congregational Church of Chester, Conn. (1892):

The seventh settled pastor was Rev. William Case. He was the son of William R. and Huldah (Loomis) Case, and was born in what was then called the parish of Wintonbury (now the town of Bloomfield), Connecticut, April 25, 1794. He graduated at Yale College in 1821, and after passing through a course of theological study at Andover Seminary, he was settled in the pastorate here by an ordaining council September 1, 1824. He ministered to this people some ten and a half years, or until March 24, 1835, when, at his own request, he received dismission.

Mr. Case was regarded as rather rigid in his theology, but he was earnest and efficient in church work. Two revivals of much power were enjoyed under his labors—one in 1827, and another in 1830 — which brought some sixty members into the Church. The whole number received into fellowship by him was ninety, and the net number of communicants increased from 97 to 127. He taught a select school during a large part of his ministry. After leaving Chester, he preached one year in New Hartford; two and a half years in Middle Haddam (now Cobalt): one year in North Madison; and for shorter periods in other places. He was the editor of The Watchman, a religious weekly in Hartford, for six years, and a teacher in select schools in Higganum and Killingworth. In this latter place he spent eight or nine years, until, on becoming mentally deranged, he was taken to the Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, where he died, April 27, 1858, aged 64 years.

Soon after his settlement in Chester he was married to Chloe Stoughton of Bloomfield, who bore him three daughters and two sons. She died in 1840. His deep grief over her death was supposed to be the incipient cause of that mild form of insanity which afflicted the latter part of his life.

When he left Chester, Rev. Case’s house was acquired by the Congregational Church and was used as its parsonage until 1853. C. J. Bates, who bought the house around 1900, Victorianized it, but it has since been restored to its original style.