Trinity Episcopal Church, Newtown (1870)

In 1732, Newtown’s Congregational minister, Rev. John Beach, converted to the Anglican Church and traveled to Scotland to be ordained. He then returned to Newtown, where the town’s Anglicans built a small church near the corner of Main Street and Glover Avenue. Its location was marked in 1907 by a memorial tablet. A larger church was built on Main Street in 1746, followed by a third building, formally named Trinity Church and consecrated in 1793 by Bishop Samuel Seabury. The current church was built in 1870. As explained in Newtown’s History and Historian, Ezra Levan Johnson (1917):

In 1866, the parish bought the homestead of Isaac Beers, just south of the old church and separated from it by a branch road connecting at the rear of the Church with the road leading to Sandy Hook. The town relinquished its right to this road. The strip of road, together with the homestead bought of Isaac Beers, made ample room for the site and building of the new Church, without disturbing the old Church building. After the completion of the stone Church, the old building was sold at auction for $100 and torn down. […] The architect was Mr. Silas Norman Beers, one of Newtown’s gifted sons. He, with Mr. Henry Sanford [a merchant] and others of the committee, gave time and strength in unstinted measure to the work, and it was a proud day in February, 1870, that saw the completion of the fourth Church edifice since the first Rector, Rev. John Beach, preached his first sermon in 1732 under the button-ball tree at the four corners below the Street.

Church of the Epiphany, Durham (1862)

One of the few Gothic Revival style buildings in Durham is the Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal church on Main Street, built in 1862. The earliest Episcopal church services in Durham were held in 1802, but it was not until 1861 that two men, Andrew Morse and Frank Goodwin, began raising money for the construction of a church. The cornerstone was laid in 1862 and the completed church was consecrated on January 28, 1863. The tower was constructed in 1877 and that same year, the building was raised 1.2 feet and placed on a new foundation.

Trinity Episcopal Church, Milton (1802)

Episcopal services were first held in the Milton section of Litchfield in 1792. At first, services were held five Sundays a year with the meetings taking place in private homes. In 1798, Episcopalians living in Milton were given permission by the First Episcopal Society to build their own chapel and Trinity Parish was established. Work on the church edifice began in 1802 and was not completed until 1826, with the church finally being consecrated (after all debts had been paid) in 1837. The church was designed by Oliver Dickinson, who modeled it on the second Trinity Church at Wall Street in New York. The church’s steeple was replaced, later in the nineteenth century, with four Gothic-style square-cornered turrets. The belfry and steeple were later both replaced after being struck by lightning in 1897. When the church was being repaired and wired for electricity in 1938, pinnacles with crosses were discovered that had once stood at the base of the initial steeple. This made it possible to determine the proportions of the old steeple and restore the church to its original appearance.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Waterbury (1873)

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury was established in 1737, with the first church building being constructed in 1743 at West Main and Willow Streets. A new church was built in 1797 at the west end of Waterbury Green, the first of three successive churches at that location. Expanded in 1839, the 1797 church was moved to East Main Street in 1847 to become St. Peter’s Catholic Church (it was torn down in 1888). The second, granite Gothic Revival church was built in 1848. This church’s steeple toppled in a high wind in 1857 and the church itself burned down on Christmas Eve, 1868. It was replaced by the current church, built in 1873 and designed by Henry C. Dudley, an architect known for his Gothic Revival churches. The church features stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Cheshire (1840)

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The Episcopal parish in Cheshire was formed in 1751, under the leadership of Rev. Ichabod Camp, an Anglican priest born in Durham, who later traveled to the west. The first Episcopal church was built in 1760, replaced by a new one ten years later. According to Old Historic Homes of Cheshire (1895), compiled by Edwin R. Brown, “This second church building was low between joints. In 1795 a very high steeple was added—much out of proportion to the building. It is stated that when the Bishop of the Diocese first saw this high steeple, he remarked: ‘They had better now build a church for the steeple.'” The oldest part of the current St. Peter’s Church, the Nave, was built in 1840 and the hipped-roofed front section was added to it in 1889.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex (1897)

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Around 1890, St. John’s Episcopal Church, the first Episcopal church in Essex, was built in Centerbrook, near what is today the Essex Steam Train station. At the time, the Essex Village section of town was becoming more prominent, so around 1800 the church building was moved to Prospect Street. In 1897, a new church was constructed at Main and Cross Streets. This 1897 church contains many stained glass windows taken from the earlier building. The church was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by Bridgeport architect Joseph W. Northrup (he also designed houses and his plans were used in other parts of the country, including a house in Texas). In 1999, a new construction project linked the church to the adjacent parish house. The church rectory is the Richard Hayden House on Main Street.