Union Society of Phoenixville House (1806)

Phoenixville is a village in the town of Eastford. At the junction of Routes 44 and 198 (4 Hartford Turnpike) is a former residence that would become the Union Society of Phoenixville House. It was built in 1806 as the home of Smith Snow (1784-1842), a mill-owner. In 1858, Snow’s heirs conveyed the house to Lydia Clark, the wife of his nephew, Albert B. Clark (1825-1903), a shoemaker. Around the turn of the century, the house was already being used as a nondenominational Sunday School, which officially incorporated in 1907 as the Union Society of Phoenixville and purchased the building. It also served as a meeting place for the local community and by the 1940s was commonly known as the Community House. The building was moved a short distance west of its original location circa 1930 to accommodate highway improvements. The building was in use until 2000, but already before that time fewer events were being held and maintenance issues had made preserving the building difficult (by the 1960s the upper floor had become unsafe). The Union Society sold the building to the Town of Eastford in 2002 and it has since been the object of preservation efforts (the roof was replaced in 2009).