East Granby Congregational Church (1830)

As related by Albert Carlos Bates, in the introduction to his Records of the Congregational Church in Turkey Hills: now the Town of East Granby, Connecticut, 1776-1858 (1907):

The Congregational Church in Turkey Hills, now the town of East Granby, Connecticut, is said by tradition to have been organized in 1737, the year in which the society or parish in which it is located held its first meeting. The General Assembly in October of the previous year had passed an act which divided the town of Simsbury into four ecclesiastical societies, the section previously called the “northeast corner” being established as Turkey Hills. The same year another act of the Assembly enlarged the limits of the society, by adding to it on the east a section of the town of Windsor, having a length of about four miles and known from its width as “the half mile”. In 1786, by division of the town of Simsbury, the section of Turkey Hills which had been in that town became a part of the town of Granby; and in 1854, by the same method, the section which had been in Windsor became a part of the town of Windsor Locks. On June 2, 1858, the town of East Granby was incorporated [from portions of Granby and Windsor Locks] with practically the same boundaries as the society of Turkey Hills.

The Society’s first meetinghouse was completed in 1744. The current East Granby Congregational Church is a masonry building of ashlar granite, built in 1830 by Connecticut Valley master builder, Isaac Damon, of Northampton, Massachusetts.

First Congregational Church of East Windsor (1802)

The Fourth Ecclesiastical Society of Windsor, or North Society, was established in 1752 and a meetinghouse was soon built near the Scantic River. In the late 1790s, there were intense debates over the issue of enlarging the building. A decision was finally reached to expand the meetinghouse, but it burned down on April 20, 1802. There was then a violent contoversy and accusations of arson, but a new meetinghouse on the same site was soon completed. In 1768, East Windsor had separated from the town of Windsor and in 1845 South Windsor separated fom East Windsor. The Congregational church in the East Windsor Hill section of the new town of South Windsor had been the First Church of East Windsor, but then became the First Church of South Windsor, while the former North Society Church in the Scantic section of East Windsor became the First Church of East Windsor. The church‘s exterior walls were extended in 1842. That same year, interior floor space was also enlarged, when the the empty space between the balconies above the main floor was floored over, creating a new upper floor for religious services. The lower floor was later known as Library Hall, because the town’s public library was located there from 1907 to 1920.

Orange Congregational Church (1810)

The first meetinghouse in North Milford, now Orange, was constructed on the north end of what is now Orange Center Green in 1792. At that time, residents of Orange were still members of the Milford Congregational Church, but a separate Ecclesiastical Society was eventually formed in 1804. The separate Town of Orange was incorporated in 1822. The current Orange Congregational Church, designed by David Hoadley, was built in 1810-1811.

South Congregational Church, Middletown (1867)

During the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, Ebenezer Frothingham was a separatist minister. In 1753, he brought his congregation from Wethersfield, where he had been in and out of jail, to Middletown in pursuit of religious tolerance. After worshiping in his home on Mill Street, a meeting house was erected nearby. Known as the Strict Congregational Church and later as South Church, the congregation moved to a new building at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets in 1830. A Discourse Preached in the South Congregational Church, Middletown, Ct., on the Sabbath Morning after the Assassination of President Lincoln was published in 1865. The current church was constructed on the same site, replacing the earlier structure, in 1867. The church was renovated in 1985 and 2008.

First Congregational Church of Plainfield (1819)

The First Church of Christ of Plainfield was established in 1705. The Town of Quinebaug, now Plainfield, had already been incorporated in 1699, although it did not yet have an established church or meeting house. The first meeting house was begun in 1702 on Black Hill and took seven years to be finished. In 1720, the church was moved to a more central position on the turnpike and that structure lasted sixty years. In 1784, a new church, half a mile to the south, was completed, but was blown down in the September gale of 1815. A new and sturdier church, constructed of stone, was completed on the same spot in 1819 and continues today as the First Congregational Church of Plainfield.

West Avon Congregational Church (1818)

The Congregational Church in Avon began in 1751 as the Church of Christ in Northington (as Avon was then called). A split in the church occurred in 1817, after the old Northington meeting house was destroyed in a fire. The majority of the congregation decided to build a new church in the geographic center of town. Completed in 1818, the church is still in use today as the West Avon Congregational Church. In 1819, the remainder of the congregation built what is now the Avon Congregational Church to the east, in the community’s commercial center. Avon was incorporated as a town in 1830 and, until a town hall was built in 1891, town meetings were held alternately in the two churches. In 1969, the West Avon Congregational Church was moved from Burnham Road to its current location on Country Club Road.

Milton Congregational Church (1791)

Begun in 1791, the interior of the Milton Congregational Church was not completed until 1841. The church was built on Milton Green by the Third Ecclesiastical Society of Litchfield and passed to the Milton Ecclesiastical Society in 1795, which established the Milton Congregational Presbyterian Church in 1798. The church was at that time painted yellow and it was decided to move the building, considered by some to be a disfigurement of the Green, across the river. It was therefre moved to its present location in 1828 onto land donated by Asa Morris. The building’s Greek Revival features were added at that time and the cupola was built in 1843. The church was without central heating until 1996, when the building was temporarily moved off its foundation while a new foundation was being poured.