Keeney Schoolhouse (1751)

The Keeney Schoolhouse in Manchester was built around 1751 on Keeney Street. Little is known of its subsequent history until 1975, when the Town’s Bicentennial Committee voted to restore the building and relocate it to the grounds of the Cheney Homestead to become a museum, furnished and maintained by the Manchester Historical Society. The former schoolhouse had long been used as a farm building by that point and was in such a deteriorated condition that a restoration was not possible. Instead a replica was constructed, complete with rounded ceiling. It was rebuilt utilizing as much material from the original structure as possible.

Mystic Bank (1833)

Now located at Mystic Seaport, the Mystic Bank was originally built in 1833 in Old Mystic, at the head of the Mystic River. The first president of the bank was Elias Brown and the first cashier was George W. Noyes, who later held the same position at the Mystic River Bank. The Mystic Bank moved its operations to a new brick building in 1856. The first floor of the old bank building then became the post office and the upper floor was used as a carpenter’s shop. The building would be used for different purposes over the years until 1948-1951, when it was moved to Mystic Seaport. The current front portico is a reproduction of the original. (more…)

Old Town Hall, Bethany (1914)

The building at 512 Amity Road in Bethany was erected in 1914 (with a small addition built in 1952) to serve as the Town Hall. In 1977, part of an elementary school on Peck Road was renovated for use as a new Town Hall. The old building on Amity Road was renamed the Stanley Downs Memorial Building to commemorate former First Selectman Stanley H. Downs (1906-1963). The Bethany Episcopal Church purchased the building from the town in 1980. In 1994, the church gave it to the new Bethany Historical Society, which had just been formed the year before. The Historical Society restored the building in 1995-1996 to become a museum.

Burrows House (1825)

The Burrows House at Mystic Seaport, built between 1805 and 1825, was originally erected on Water Street, on the Groton side of the Mystic River. In the 1860s and 1870s, it was the home of Seth and Jane Burrows. By that time the house had been raised above a new story in which Seth Winthrop Burrows sold groceries. The house was dismantled in 1953 to make way for a bank and then reassembled at Mystic Seaport. (more…)

Martha Culver House (1857)

Ammi Culver, who owned a brickyard on the banks of the Quinnipiac River, built the house at 290 Quinnipiac Avenue in North Haven in 1857. After his death in 1865, his widow Delia lived their with her children, Benjamin and Martha, and Samuel Sackett, her second husband. Martha Culver (1864-1926) married Frank Smith, but soon divorced him. After traveling for some years, she lived the rest of her life in her old family home in North Haven. She later willed her house and land to the the town, stipulating that the property be used as a community gathering place that would include a library and recreational fields. She had been a member of the Friday Afternoon Club, which had started a private library in 1912. First located in the vestibule of the Baptist Church, it moved to the Culver house in 1927 and continued in operation by the Friday Afternoon Club until 1962 and thereafter by the town as the Montowese branch of the North Haven Public Library until 1978, when library operations were consolidated at the main town library. Today Martha Culver Memorial is preserved by the North Haven Historical Society as a house museum and also contains the Brockett collection of early farm tools and equipment.

Windham Textile and History Museum (1877)

The Windham Textile and History Museum (411 Main Street in Willimantic) presents the nineteenth and early twentieth century history of Willimantic’s textile industry, focusing on the Willimantic Linen Company, whose former mill buildings are located just across the street. These mills were later owned by the American Thread Company. In 1985 they were acquired by developer Jonathan Dugan. The museum opened in 1989 in two buildings erected by the company in 1877 and donated by Dugan in 1986. One is the former company store (pictured above), which had a library for workers on the third floor called Dunham Hall. The other (pictured below) is called the Dugan Mill, the upper floor of which was added during the first decade of the twentieth century to be used as the headquarters for the American Thread Fire Brigade. It later became a meeting hall which was recently restored for use by the museum.

Capt. Oliver Filley House (1834)

Oliver Filley, Jr. was a farmer and tinsmith who served as a militia captain during the War of 1812, although his Connecticut militia unit did not see any combat. Capt. Filley built the house at 130 Mountain Avenue in Bloomfield for his son Jay in 1834. The floorplan of the house consists of two intersecting wings, with the living quarters primarily in the west wing. The house, which has walls constructed of rubblestone and multi-colored traprock, was the third stone house to be built in Bloomfield, following a house built two years earlier by David Grant and the Francis Gillette House. The Filley House and farm were sold out of the family in 1849 and five years later was acquired by Samuel Bushnell Pinney. In 1913 the farm was acquired by the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, a Catholic order which had a seminary in Hartford. They owned the property until 1987. It was acquired by the Town of Bloomfield in 1992. The Wintonbury Historical Society soon leased the house and began planning for its restoration. It will become a museum, cultural center, research library, and office for the Society.