Shiloh Baptist Church, Hartford (1915)

Shiloh Baptist Church

Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford is the city’s fourth oldest black church. It began in 1889 after a split in the membership of Union Baptist Church. The church began in the home of Lucy Roy and then used various halls temporarily, until occupying a church on Mather Street, built in 1902. The current church building, at 350 Albany Avenue, was built in stages. As the Hartford Courant reported on December 7, 1914:

It was decided to build upon the pay-as-you-go plan, and the vestry of the edifice was built, the cornerstone being laid December 4, 1911. The new vestry was dedicated in February, 1912. Since this dedication, this part of the church has been the meeting place of the parish members. Last winter, the temporary roof over the vestry was troublesome because of its leaking. To repair it would have involved the expenditure of some $1,500, and it was decided to make one piece of work of raising the structure to completion.

The completed church, designed by L. D. Bayley, was dedicated on June 27, 1915.

Bethesda Mission (1866)

Several religious congregations have used the building at 540 East Washington Street in Bridgeport over the years. It was built in 1866-1867 as the Bethesda Mission Chapel and Sunday School. It was later home to the East Washington Avenue Baptist Church (formed in 1874) and then to Congregation Adath Israel, the first Orthodox synagogue in Bridgeport. The edifice’s current cornice dates to 1902. Today the building is owned by the Apostolic Worship Center. The AWC purchased it in 1997 and completed renovating the sanctuary in 2002.

First Baptist Church of Bridgeport (1893)

The First Baptist Church of Bridgeport is a Richardsonian Romanesque structure located at 126 Washington Avenue. Built in 1893, it was the work of architect Joseph W. Northrop. According to Volume I of the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917):

The first Baptist society was organized July 24, 1837, and was composed of six members, namely: Benjamin Wakeman, Raymond Whitney, Roswell Whitney, Bennett Whitney and two others not known. The church was constituted September 20, 1837, with thirty-nine members, eleven of whom were males and twenty-eight females. Rev. Joseph Eaton was the first regular pastor in 1838 and under him the membership increased to 136. Succeeding him the following have served as pastors of the First Baptist Church: Revs. Daniel Harwington, William Smith, William Reid, J. L. Hodge, A. McGregor Hopper, M. H. Pogson, W. V. Garner, C. C. Luther, G. W. Nicholson, and John Richard Brown.

Under Rev. J. L. Hodge a new church was constructed. In 1892 this structure was sold and a new location purchased at the corner of Washington and West avenues, where a stone church was erected and dedicated October 28, 1894. Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Smith, author of “America” participated in the ceremony. This church was incorporated in 1908.

United Church of Stonington (1834)

The United Church of Stonington was formed in 1950 as a union of the Second Congregational Church and First Baptist Church. The church building on Main Street in Stonington Borough was built in 1834 as the Second Congregational Church of Stonington. Richard Anson Wheeler, in his History of Stonington (1900), describes the formation of the church:

The First Congregational Society of Stonington, after several unsuccessful attempts to divide itself into two societies by metes and bounds, called a meeting to assemble on the 28th day of September, 1833, and after mature deliberation took a new departure and adopted a plan for organizing a new church and society in Stonington, viz.: “That whenever forty members of the First Society should withdraw and organize a new Congregational Society at the Borough and elect society officers, and shall give notice to the old society of their doings within thirty days from the day of the meeting, the new society shall then be regarded as organized and receive $1,825 of the old society’s fund.” The conditions were immediately complied with at the meeting. Forty-five members of the society withdrew, formed a new society, and took their money and invested it in a new meeting-house. As soon as the new society was formed, ninety-three members of the First Church seceded and organized the Second Church in connection with said society Nov. 11th, 1833.

The church’s clock, in a recently restored steeple, is owned and regulated by the Borough government.

First Baptist Church of Wallingford (1870)

The Baptist church in Wallingford begun as a branch of the Waterford Baptist church in 1731 and was organized as the Third Baptist Church in Connecticut in 1735 and then the First Baptist Church of Wallingford in 1786. The church used a dwelling house in Meriden (then a part of Wallingford) as a house of worship starting in 1801. After Meriden became a separate town, the Wallingford members established their own church in Wallingford and built a meeting house in 1821. After the church burned down in 1869, the current church was constructed and dedicated in 1870. Located at 114 North Main Street, it is a brick building in the Romanesque Revival style.