Second Congregational Church, New London (1868)

The Second Congregational Church of New London, at 45 Broad Street, was built in 1868. According to the History of New London, by Frances Manwaring Caulkins, “A second Congregational church was organized [due to overcrowding] by a colony of nineteen members from the first church, April 28th, 1835. A church had been previously built [it had been completed in August, 1834] and dedicated April 23d [1835].” This church, which stood at the corner of Jay and Huntington Streets, was later destroyed by fire and the current church, on Broad Street was dedicated in 1870. It was designed by the Albany, NY architects Nichols and Brown. The church suffered complete interior damage during a fire on December 3, 1926.

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 Church of Christ Congregational, Clinton (1837)

The town of Clinton, originally known as Killingworth, established a congregational church society in 1667. The first meeting house, located in what would develop into Clinton Village, was built of logs and was succeeded by two others, built in 1700 and 1731. In 1735, a second church society was formed in the north part of Killingworth. This later society became a separate town in 1868 and retained the name Killingworth, while the south part became the town of Clinton. The current First Church in Clinton was built in 1837 in a different location than its predecessors: the top of Meeting House Hill, where it faces south and can be seen from Clinton harbor. Also on the hill, near the church, (to the left in the image above) is the Yale College Monument. From 1701 to 1707, Rev. Abraham Pierson, pastor of the church, taught classes of the Collegiate School in the part of Killingworth that would become Clinton. In 1716, the School moved to New Haven and was renamed Yale in 1718.

Park Congregational Church, Norwich (1874)

As related in A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, Volume 1 (1922), during the pastorate of Rev. Malcolm McGregor Dana at the Second Congregational Church of Norwich:

The feeling that its helpfulness to the community would be increased by removal to the suburban district near the Academy led to marked differences of opinion with the majority of his parishioners, and in 1874 Dr. Dana resigned and, with one hundred and five of his old members, formed the Park Congregational Church.

The church, built in 1874, was designed by Stephen C. Earle of Worcester in the Romanesque Revival style.

Congregational Church in Killingworth (1820)

In 1735, responding to a petition from the farmers residing in the north section of Killingworth, the town was divided into two separate Ecclesiastical Societies, north and south. The southern section of town was later incorporated as the town of Clinton in 1838. The northern society‘s first meeting house (1736) was located on “Stoney Hill, just north of the bridge across Bear Swamp,” (near the intersection of the present Routes 80 and 81). This initial building was replaced by a new one in 1743. The third and current house of worship of the Congregational Church in Killingworth, at 273 Route 81, was built between 1817 and 1820. The bell was installed in 1870 and the organ in 1875. The addition of the Parish Hall was begun in 1959 and was dedicated in 1961, the same year the church voted to join the United Church of Christ.

First Church of Bethlehem (1836)

At the time of its settlement, Bethlehem was the northern part of the Town of Woodbury. As related in the History of Ancient Woodbury (1854), by William Cothren,

Four years after the first settlement, the number of families amounted to only fourteen; yet this handful of people felt able to support a minister a part of the time, and accordingly petitioned the General Assembly at its October session, 1738, for liberty to have “winter privileges,” for five months,” in the most difficult season of the year, viz., November, December, January, February and March,” as they lived so far from church, it was impossible to attend. […] In May, 1739, they petitioned to be released from parish taxes as long as they should hire a minister, and from school taxes, on establishing a school of their own, “the school in the first society being so far off it was of no use to them.” The request was granted, and they were permitted to hire a “minister and set up a school.” At the October session of the same year, they petitioned that the “east half of the North Purchase” might be set off as a distinct ecclesiastical society.

The Society voted to build a meeting house in 1740 and, again quoting the History of Ancient Woodbury, “The clerk of the society in 1743, reported the house covered, and in May, 1744, that materials were provided for finishing the inside of the house.” This building was later replaced:

The first house in the society after a time was deemed too small for its accommodation. Accordingly on the 4th of January, 1764, when there were about one hundred within its limits that paid taxes, they voted to build a second church. On the 28th of the next month, they voted again to build the house, “and to begin and go on moderately and Little by Little.” […] By a vote of the society, October 20th, 1768, directing the society’s committee to “seat the new Meeting House,” “and dignify the Pues [sic]” therein, we learn when it was finished and ready for worship. In December, 1793, a tax of sixpence on the pound was laid to build a steeple, provided money enough to purchase a “good decent bell and a Lightning rod” for the same should be raised by subscription. Eighty pounds were soon subscribed, and the bell was obtained.

The current First Church of Bethlehem was built as the Society’s third successive meeting house in 1836. It is a Greek Revival, Doric tetrastyle, clapboard church.

United Church of Christ, Southbury (1844)

The United Church of Christ in Southbury was constructed in 1844 as the the meeting house of the First Ecclesiastical Society of Southbury. It was the Society’s third meeting house, as described in Vol. II of the 1892 History of New Haven County, Connecticut (edited by J. L. Rockey):

For more than half a century the settlers of Southbury worshipped in Woodbury church, and were tributary to the First Ecclesiastical Society of that town. In May, 1731, the Southbury parish was incorporated, and November 29th, 1732, this society voted to build a meeting house, and asked the assembly for a committee to locate a site. In May, 1733, the committee selected a final place, “setting the stake down on the hill between Lt. Andrew Hinman’s and the house that was Elnathan Strong’s.” This site was in the highway nearly in front of the present White Oak school house. The building was a plain frame, 35 by 45 feet, with 23 foot posts, and was not fully completed for 20 years.

[…] It was not many years before the first meeting house was too small to accommodate the congregation, and a new house was demanded. As in the first instance, the question of site proved troublesome, and it was several years before an agreement could be reached. Finally, after four years’ effort, a site was selected on Southbury street, south of the old site, on which was begun in 1764 one of the largest and finest meeting houses in this part of the state. It was twelve years before it was fully completed and was a noteworthy object many miles around, with its high spire, in which was a good bell and also a clock. These were purchased by general subscriptions of the citizens of the town, which were secured in December, 1773.

The meeting house stood at the head of the lane leading to the middle cemetery, which it fronted, and was used until the present house was occupied in 1844, when it was taken down and the material removed.

Attached to the rear of the church is the former Southbury Methodist Church building. Also in the Greek Revival style, it was built in 1847 and was moved and attached to the Congregational church in 1957.