The Congregational Church in the village of Broad Brook in the Town of East Windsor was first organized in 1849 and their original church building was dedicated in January of 1854. After the church was burned on February 8, 1893, construction began on the current building, which was dedicated on January 24, 1894. As a reporter for the Hartford Courant newspaper noted at the time, “The church as a whole is complete in all its equipments and presents a very neat and cheerful appearance.”
(more…)
The oldest ecclesiastical building in the State of Connecticut that has been continuously used for its original religious purpose is the Abington Congregational Church in the Town of Pomfret. Overcrowding at the Pomfret meetinghouse, as well as the great distance residents from the Abington section of town had to travel to attend services there, led to the creation of a separate ecclesiastical society in Abington 1749. The new congregation erected its own meetinghouse in 1751, a building that is one of the few surviving examples in New England of eighteenth-century peg and beam construction. The building was completely remodeled in the Greek Revival style between 1834 and 1840 by the architect-builder Edwin Fitch of Mansfield. Among various interior and exterior alterations, Fitch created a new facade featuring four Doric pilasters and replaced the church‘s 1802 bell tower with the current three-stage steeple.
(more…)
The Old Stone Church, also known as the Hill Church and the Stone Meetinghouse, is located adjacent to the New Preston Hill Green in the town of Washington. The successor to two earlier church buildings, erected in 1754 and 1766, that no longer survive, the Stone Church was built in 1824 by the Ecclesiastical Society of New Preston. It was at the heart of a rural community that included two other stone notable buildings: a tavern, built in 1800 across the street, and a schoolhouse, built in 1850 behind the church. In 1853 the congregation built a new church at New Preston Center, which was developing as an industrial center. The New Preston Hill area has maintained its rural character and the Old Stone Church, which lacks modern heating, continued to be used during the summer months.
(more…)
The New Preston Congregational Church, located at 15 Church Street in the New Preston section of the town of Washington, was built in about 1853. The New Preston Ecclesiastical Society was originally established in 1753 and its first meeting house was located southwest of the common at New Preston Hill (at the intersection of New Preston Hill, Findley, & Gunn Hill Roads). The Society decided to build a second meeting house in 1766 at the northwest corner of the common and this was replaced in 1824 by a stone church building that still exists today and is known as the Hill Church. By the mid-nineteenth century, New Preston Center, a mile to the east, had developed into an industrial center and the congregation decided (after much debate) to erect a new church there in 1853. This is the current New Preston Congregational Church, while the Hill Church is used for summer services. In 1886 the church ordered a Steere & Turner Opus #221 organ which was restored in 1969.
The origins of the First Congregational Church of Portland go back to 1714 when it known as the Third Society of Middletown, later called Chatham. The areas that are now the town of Portland and East Hampton were incorporated in 1767 as the Town of Chatham. Portland separated from Chatham to become the Town of Portland in 1841. The Society had two earlier church buildings before the current one. As related in the 1884 History of Middlesex County:
At the annual meeting in 1845, difference of opinion prevailed as to the location of the prospective new church, and accordingly a committee, consisting of Deacon Job H. Payne, Philip H. Sellew, and Ebenezer B. White, were appointed to select two or more judicious and disinterested persons as an advisory committee, to consult together and report. The next year, by a vote of nine to fifteen, it was determined to place the new edifice on the old site, but it was decided by the moderator (one of the deacons of the church) to be no vote. At a meeting soon after it was voted thirteen to seven to build on “Meeting House Hill.” This was likewise decided by the same moderator to be no vote. It is presumable that the foregoing decisions were reached by the moderator, in view of the smallness of the number present, the general want of enthusiasm, and possible lack of requisite pledges. Three years elapsed, when, November 6th 1849, it was voted twenty-six to nine, three not voting, that the meeting house should be erected on the lot owned by John I. Worthington, situated between the dwelling houses of Harlord H. Caswell, and George H. Pettis, and William H. Bartlett, Ebenezer B. White, Henry E. Sage, Philip H. Sellew, and Reuben Paynewere appointed a building committee. The present church edifice was built in 1850, and on the 18th of December of the same year was dedicated. It is of Gothic structure, 70 by 39 feet. The building cost $6,200; the site, bell, furniture, and other accommodations, $1,450; total, $7,650.
In 1711, settlers in the district of Greens Farms (then the West Parish of Fairfield and now part of Westport) were permitted by Connecticut General Court to form their own Congregational Society. By 1720, the congregation had completed a meeting house at the foot of Morningside Drive and Greens Farms Road. The community grew rapidly and a larger meeting house was needed. It was erected in 1738 at the corner of Green’s Farms Road and the Sherwood Island Connector, opposite the Colonial Burial Ground. This building was burned by a British raiding party in 1779 during the Revolutionary War. The congregation’s third meeting house was completed in 1781 on Hillandale Road. It was replaced by the current Green’s Farms Church, a Greek Revival-style building, in 1853. The Parish of Greens Farms was annexed by the Town of Westport in 1842.
(more…)
Swedish immigrants in the town of Washington began work on a church adjacent to the bridge over the Shepaug River in the Washington Depot section of town in 1888 and it was dedicated on the Sunday before Christmas 1889. Originally known as the Swedish branch of the Congregational Church in Washington, the congregation split off on its own in 1892 to become the Salem Evangelical Covenant Church. That same year, other Swedish immigrants erected Trinity Lutheran Church just across the street. The Salem Covenant Church congregation relocated to a new church at 96 Baldwin Hill Road in 1977 and the old church building is now a private home.
(more…)
You must be logged in to post a comment.