One thing so many small New England towns have are charming wood-frame white churches from the first half of the 19th century, Eastford, Connecticut is no exception. In 1793, a Baptist Society was organized at Northford (then a part of Ashford), and the first pastor, Daniel Bolton, oversaw construction of the first church there. Fifty years later, the congregation grew and their finances allowed for the construction of this Greek Revival style church in 1843. The building was added onto for a Ladies Benevolent Society and a Sunday School, giving the structure its larger appearance today. While the church is today is covered in later siding, the building is well-maintained and the original siding is likely underneath for a future restoration.
The Baptist church in Westford (a village in northern Ashford, yes it’s a little confusing) was formed in 1780. Its growth in the town can largely be attributed to Reverend John Rathburn, who had moved to town from Stonington, and was ordained as its pastor in 1781. A membership of fifty-four was reported in 1795. By the late 1830s, the village thrived due to the success of local businessmen and later, thanks to the Westford Glass Company, located nearby. Members donated to build this Greek Revival style church on a prominent corner in town, replacing the former meetinghouse. By the late 20th century, the church saw dwindling membership and merged with another in town. This church was sold to a neighboring property and is privately owned today.
In 1921, the Catholic Diocese of Hartford purchased a Federal style farmhouse with 135-acres of land in Ashford, Connecticut, with the intention of establishing a new parish in the area. The Diocese assigned Father William J. Dunn, a Connecticut native and son of Irish Immigrants, to this daunting task. Since they had no church building at the time, Father Dunn partitioned off a section of his own home to serve as a chapel for about 100 worshipers, until the purpose-built St. Philip the Apostle Church was constructed in the 1930s. Father Dunn convinced summer resident Paul Chalfin to design the new building. Chalfin was not an architect, but he was an architectural designer whose best known building is the Villa Vizcaya in Miami, Florida. Chalfin was openly gay, and his hiring by the Catholic Church to design one of its churches in the 1930s is noteworthy. There were certainly several Irish immigrants and people of Irish descent in the congregation, but many parishioners came from small villages in Slovakia. The dome is a typical feature of churches in those villages and Chalfin included it in his design as a tribute to them. Due to material and construction costs during the Great Depression, members of the church largely built the church themselves with rocks acquired from stone walls and farms nearby. The church was completed in 1937.
The small town of Union, Connecticut was established in 1734 and as with many towns at the time, religion and community were some of the first things to be codified when settling in a new area. The town’s publicly supported religion, Congregationalism permeated everyday life in Union. Even after disestablishment in 1818, the Congregational church continued as Union’s predominant religious organization well into the twentieth century. By 1841, the members built this edifice, the congregations second, on a hill overlooking the town’s modest green. The vernacular church features a Gothic lancet window, classical belfry, and later pent roof porches over the entrances on the primary facade.
Believe it or not, this church in Ridgefield Center was built in 1965! To know its full history, we have to go back to 1787, when the Methodist Episcopal Church had its beginnings in Ridgefield, the third in New England. Its first meeting was held – just 21 years after Methodism had been introduced into the U.S. from England. In 1789 Jesse Lee, a native of Virginia, was sent north as a circuit rider. His third sermon in Connecticut was preached at the Independent Schoolhouse on Main Street in Ridgefield. In the 1840s, a second meetinghouse in town was built, and the congregation grew. A third church and rectory were built on Main Street in 1884. When a large Main Street estate was available for a new, stately building, the congregation jumped at the opportunity, and hired ecclesiastical architect Harold Wagoner to design a refined, Colonial Revival style church, which was built in 1965. Executed in brick, the church has great verticality, created by the colossal columns supporting its pedimented portico and the spire that rises over an open belfry to a height of 149 feet. Set back from the street, the church still has a commanding presence.
The South Britain Congregational Church in Southbury, Connecticut was built in 1825 and was originally known as the Meeting House of the South Britain Ecclesiastical Society. The congregation dates back to 1766 and its first pastor, Jehu Minor, a Yale educated minister from Woodbury, was chosen in 1768. Members met at the Moses Downs House before its first meetinghouse was built in 1770. When the pre-Revolution church building was deemed inadequate, funds were raised to erect a new house of worship. In 1825, boards and other usable parts from the old building were used to construct the present Federal style church that stands in the middle of the village today. History states that pulleys were attached to an ox cart to hoist the bell up the steeple which is by far the tallest structure in the neighborhood. It is an exceptional example of the Federal style, with beautifully balanced proportions, a front pavilion, fine detailing and an elegant three-story steeple. The church made more history when in on September 25, 1937, 178 acres of land in Southbury, Connecticut was purchased for the German-American Bund, intent on building a Nazi camp. Similar camps were popping up around the nation, in an effort to promote an anti-semitic and pro-Nazi agenda. Led by Reverend Lindsay, the pastor of the church, the townspeople quickly established a zoning commission whose first ordinance forbade land usage in the town for “military training or drilling with or without arms except by the legally constituted armed forces of the United States of America.” Stunting the proliferation of nazism in Connecticut before WWII. This is why Southbury is sometimes known as “The town that said no to the Nazis”.
The stereotypical church in New England is the usual wooden structure with a central steeple and painted a bright white. Whenever I see an old church that breaks that oh-so-common mold, I have to snap a photo and learn more! This is the Church of the Epiphany, located on Main Street in Southbury, Connecticut. The church is an example of the Gothic style built in the Victorian period and is constructed of stone with a wooden corner belfry. Construction started in 1863, and the church was not completed until four years later in 1867. I could not locate who the architect was, but I am dying to know!
Originally, the parishioners living in present-day Southbury would travel to Woodbury Center to attend church services. This changed after the Southbury parish was incorporated in 1731, voting to erect a church a year later. Founded in 1732, the Southbury Congregational Church was dwelled in several sites until the third church was built on the present site in 1844. This Greek Revival style church features Doric pilasters and Ionic columns at the recessed portico with a large pediment above with ornate scroll carvings around the clock. The church remains well-preserved and a visual landmark on the Main street.
One of the more substantial buildings in the small town of Middlebury, Connecticut is this large church which faces the town green. In 1904 St. John of the Cross Parish was granted ecclesiastical status however, a decade would pass before the newly constructed stone church on the Middlebury Green was dedicated on November 22, 1914. The building was constructed in rubblestone with a Classical Revival temple-front pavillion and two Renaissance Revival square towers with open belfries. Reports stated that the building took over five years to construct, which was almost entirely built with volunteer labor and built with stones taken from parishioners fields. The architect of the church is unknown.
Located next door to the Middlebury Town Hall, the Middlebury Congregational Church has a very similar history to its Classically inspired counterpart. The congregational church here was established in 1791, less than a year after a separate Middlebury ecclesiastical society was granted and the first church here was erected in 1794. Decades later, a more traditional and larger church was desired by the congregation, so they had a Greek Revival style church built in 1839. Nearly 100 years later, the church (and adjacent original town hall building) burned in a large fire in April 1935. Undeterred, the congregation hired architect Elbert G. Richmond, AIA (1886-1965), who as a young man worked in the New Haven office of J. Frederick Kelly, Connecticut’s first and most famous restoration architect. The present building is a near-replica of the mid-19th century church building, and even has a bell that was recast from pieces of the old bell that crashed through the building during the earlier fire. Talk about rebirth!
Buildings of New England 
