The Town of Bolton was incorporated in 1720 and the town’s Congregational Church was organized in 1725. The first meeting house, located on Bolton Green, was built used for about forty years, being replaced by a new building on the same site in 1767. The second church remained until it too was replaced by the current Bolton Congregational Church, a Greek Revival building with a truncated box-spire, in 1848.
In the eighteenth century, two parishes were established in what was then the West Woods section of Farmington: the New Cambridge Ecclesiastical Society in 1742 and the West Britain Ecclesiastical Society, gathered in 1774 and incorporated in 1783. That same year, the West Britain Society dedicated their meeting house, constructed after several years of contention over where to build it. The two parishes of West Britain and New Cambridge joined in 1785 to form the new town of Bristol, but differences between the two parishes later led to the separation of West Britain as the town of Burlington in 1806. The first meeting house had been outgrown by then. According to Epaphroditus Peck, in a 1906 Address on the history of Burlington, “It is said that this little meeting-house was never finished inside, and that the swallows used to make their nests in the rafters and often fly in and out during service.” A new meeting house was built in 1809, near to the site of the first building which, according to Peck, “was removed to Bristol, and used as a cotton-mill. It afterward became the Ingraham clock-case shop, and was destroyed by fire in December, 1904.” The 1809 Congregational Church of Burlington was moved, reduced somewhat in size, and rebuilt in the Greek Revival style at its current location on the Burlington Green in 1836.
In 1762, residents of New Startford, now Monroe, successfully petitioned the State Legislature to establish a new parish. Previously, residents had made the long journey to Huntington (now Shelton) for worship. A meeting house, for use during the winter, had previously been built on Moose Hill Road. Once the New Stratford Ecclesiastical Society was formed, a new meeting house was built in 1766 on what is now Monroe Green. This was replaced by the current Monroe Congregational Church, built just to the north, in 1847. In 1985-1986, the church was expanded and the interior was restored as closely as possible to its nineteenth-century appearance.
In 1772, the Ecclesiastical Society of Orford was established, in what would later become the town of Manchester. Owing to the unsettled conditions at the time of the Revolutionary War, it took twenty years for a Congregational meeting house to be built, although the congregation used the unfinished building for worship, starting in 1779, before it was finally completed in 1794. This first church building, which stood about 130 feet east of the present Center Church, was replaced by a new structure in 1826 on the same location. The building was raised up in 1840 so that a basement could be added below. The basement was then rented to the town for the transaction of public business. In 1878, the church’s steeple blew off and crashed through the roof. It was then sold to the town and a new church was built the following year in the Gothic style. The current church, now known as Center Congregational Church, was built in 1904 in the Colonial Revival style. The neighboring brick parish house was added in 1930 and the Simpson Educational Wing in 1957.
Built in 1908 and designed by Charles O. Whitmore, the Center Church House is the parish house of Hartford’s Center Congregational Church. The impressive Colonial Revival building, at the corner of Gold and Lewis Streets, is dedicated to the educational and social work of the Church and is used as a meeting place for many community programs.
The Congregational Church of Naugatuck is on Division Street, across from Naugatuck’s Green (part of which is owned by the Church and is leased to the Borough of Naugatuck). This is the Church’s third building. The first was built on a hill to the east in 1782, a year after the congregation was formally gathered. In 1831, it was moved to a location across from the present church, on the northeast corner of what is now the Green, on land donated by Daniel Beecher, an inn keeper. It was sold and moved again, this time across the street to become a store, being replaced by the second church, built in 1853-1854. The present church was built in 1903 and was designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. It was one of several commissions by the firm around Naugatuck Green arranged by the prominent local industrialist, John Howard Whittemore.
The first church building in New Hartford was the Town Hill Church, which took ten years to build, 1739 to 1749. By 1828, it was necessary to build a new church, but residents in North Village wanted the replacement to be relocated closer to their own homes. Forming the North Ecclesiastical Society of New Hartford, some residents in the northern part of town constructed their own Congregational Church. A new church was also built on Town Hill, but another split led to the establishment of Nepaug Congregational Church in 1848. The Town Hill Church was abandoned in 1854 and taken down in 1859. The interior of the North Congregational Church was renovated in the later nineteenth century.
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