National Register of Historic Places – page 5

East District School

The East District School, built in 1798, is an historic school building at 365 Washington Street. It is significant as a rare and well-preserved 18th century schoolhouse and as the location of an evening school for adults established by Consider Sterry. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and is a contributing property to the Norwichtown Historic District.

The building is a nearly square, brick gambrel-roofed structure. It is 2½ stories tall and sits on a high stone foundation. It has been restored from its previous, dilapidated condition.

In 1798 Consider Sterry, a self-taught intellectual, opened an evening school for instruction in writing and bookkeeping. He also taught mathematics, surveying, and laying out of lands. He taught sea-going men how to obtain longitude by using lunar observations and how to find latitude by measuring the sun’s altitude. The only prerequisite for these courses was that the person be able to read.

1798 : Night School in Norwich

Evening schools of short duration, devoted to some special study, were not uncommon. The object was usually of a practical nature, and the students above childhood. The evening school of Consider Sterry, in 1798, covered, according to his program, the following range of instruction:

“Bookkeeping in the Italian, American and English methods, mathematics, surveying and plotting of lands. Price is 6d per week. Navigation and the method of finding longitude by lunar observations and latitude by the sun’s altitude, one dollar for the complete knowledge.”

Few men are gifted by nature with such an aptitude for scientific research as Consider Sterry. His attainments were all self-acquired under great disadvantages. Besides a work of lunar observations, he and his brother prepared an arithmetic for schools, and in company with Nathan Daboll, another self-taught scientific genius, he arranged and edited a system of practical navigation, entitled “The Seaman’s Universal Daily Assistant”, a work of nearly three hundred pages. He also published several small treatises, wrote political articles for the papers, and took a profound interest in free masonry.

Excerpt from “The Beginnings of Education”, by Henry A. Tirrell, former Principal of Norwich Free Academy

Acknowledgements

United States Park Service

“The Beginnings of Education”, by Henry A. Tirrell, Published by Americana, American Historical Magazine, Vol. 17, (1923), pp 165-166

CLK Hatcher

General Jedediah Huntington House

The General Jedediah Huntington House is located at 23 East Town Street, in the Norwichtown Historic District, one of Norwich’s earliest areas of settlement. The house, built in 1765 has a 2-acre lot that is fringed at the sidewalk by a low stone retaining wall. The house is a 2½ story wood frame structure, five bays wide, with a gable roof, twin brick chimneys, clapboard siding, and a stone foundation. The entry is particularly elaborate, with sidelight windows and pilasters flanking the door, and a semi-elliptical transom window and simple cornice above. The interior follows a typical central hall plan, with a fine central staircase. The semicircular window over the door and keystones over the first floor windows were later Federal additions to the house.

Jedediah and Ebenezer Huntington were brothers who served in the Revolutionary War. Sons of Major General Jabez Huntington, they successively occupied this house.

In 1776 General Jedediah Huntington fought in the New York and New Jersey campaign, and wintered at Valley Forge in 1777-1778. At the end of the war he was promoted to Major General. He was also politically active, serving as county sheriff and in the state legislature. He married Faith Trumbull, the daughter of Governor Jonathan Trumbull. After the war, he became the first Collector of Customs in New London.

His brother, Ebenezer Huntington then lived from from 1789. Ebenezer also served in the war and later served as Congressman in the House of Representatives while a member of the Federalist Political Party.

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

Acknowledgements

United States Park Service

“Old Houses of the Ancient Town of Norwich, 1600-1800”, (1895), page 221, by Mary Elizabeth Perkins

Governor Samuel Huntington House

The Governor Samuel Huntington House is a historic house at 34 East Town Street in Norwich. The house was built in 1783 by Samuel Huntington, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and Governor of Connecticut. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and is a contributing property to the Norwichtown Historic District.

The Governor Samuel Huntington House is a Georgian style, 2½ story wood frame structure, five bays wide, with a side gable roof and clapboard siding. Its most prominent feature is a monumental entry portico, rising a full two stories to a gabled pediment, supported by paired columns. Leading up to its front walk is inscribed:

HOME OF SAMUEL HUNTINGTON GOV. 1786-1796

A SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

MARKER BY D.A.R.

The house was built in 1783 for by Samuel Huntington, one of Norwich’s leading citizens. Born in Scotland, Connecticut, he came to Norwich in 1763, where he soon represented the town in the colonial legislature. He served on Connecticut’s committee of safety, and in the Continental Congress, where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and served for one year as its president. He became Connecticut’s third governor in 1786, a position he held until his death ten years later.

Acknowledgements

United States Park Service

Flickr

Greeneville Historic District

The Greeneville Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. It includes 691 contributing resources, seven other contributing structures and the Greeneville Dam.The district was drawn to primarily correspond to the village as it was laid out in 1833. However it also includes additional streets laid out and developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to accommodate population growth.

According to Info Source 2 the district is :

“A historically significant industrial village that was created to support and sustain water-powered industry from 1828 to about 1940. Much of the enduring success of this industrial enterprise can be attributed to the entrepreneurial vision of industrialist William P. Greene (1795–1862). His development of this planned community and a company to deliver a centralized power system, combined with significant technological infrastructure improvements in the late 19th century, supported the largest industrial presence in Norwich.” .

“Although nominally a part of the City of Norwich after 1875, from its creation in 1833 until after World War I, Greeneville remained a relatively independent and self-sufficient, working-class community-an evolution fully expressed by the district’s large, cohesive collection of generally well-preserved domestic, institutional and commercial architecture. While much of the architecture has the vernacular character expected in a mill town, the district also includes representative examples of the major styles of the period, including Greek Revival, Second Empire, Italianate, and Carpenter Gothic.”

*Place cursor over image to magnify

NOTABLE PLACES

Greeneville Dam (1829) : The Shetucket River was first dammed in 1829, by William P. Greene and the Norwich Water Power Company. However, the currently existing hydro-power generation system in the district mostly dates from 1882. The system includes the present dam, gatehouse and head gates, a power canal, and a number of ancillary structures. The power canal, completed in 1828, was the first industrial power canal in Connecticut. The dam was originally constructed of granite rubble with dressed granite aprons with rubble-stone abutments. After a flood in 1886, the collapsed middle section was rebuilt with gravel filled timber cribbing.
First Congregational Church (1834) : 143 Prospect Street : The first institutional building in the district was the 1834 Greek Revival-style Congregational Church, which once faced Central Avenue. In 1867, when it was turned around to face Prospect Street, the building was literally cut in half and two additional bays inserted in the long elevations
Camp, Hall & Company (1835) : 3 Fifth Street : The manufacture of paper in Greeneville began in 1835 with the Camp, Hall & Company. The company was reorganized as the Chelsea Paper Company in 1867 and its facilities were expanded. By 1870 the plant contained 19 paper making machines. It remained in business under this name until 1890, producing an average of 30 tons rag stock per day. The company employed 200 men and 100 women. Chelsea Paper Company was reorganized as the Uncas Paper Company in 1893.
Shetucket Company (1840) : 385 North Main Street : The first of the textile mills in the district was built by the Shetucket Company in 1840. William P. Greene formed the Shetucket Company from the failed Quinebaug Company. The company’s cotton mills were major manufacturers of unfinished cotton cloth.
Norwich Bleaching, Dyeing & Printing Co. (1840) : 485 North Main Street : This company, locally known as the “Bleachery” produced finished cotton cloth using cloth made by the Shetucket Company. At its peak the Bleachery had at least 20 buildings and employed 400 people. Hugh Henry Osgood was its President in 1898.
First St. Mary’s Church (1843) : 200 North Main Street : Father James Fitton’s dream of a church for his parish was fulfilled in 1843, when the first Church of St. Mary, a wood-frame building of the Greek Revival style, was erected. It was the first Roman Catholic church in eastern Connecticut, it also served Catholics from the surrounding communities of Voluntown, Baltic, Taftville, Jewett City, Yantic, and Preston.
The Connecticut Company (1905) : 385 Central Avenue : The office and Greeneville Trolley Barn were essential buildings used the Norwich trolley system in the early 1900s. The trolley system in the Norwich area provided locals the opportunity to easily travel among all Norwich neighborhoods.
St. Mary’s Catholic Church (1915) : 70 Central Avenue : A Gothic Revival granite edifice with rose window. A bell tower, erected in 1921, stands next to the Tudor Revival rectory that was built in 1909.
St. Nicholas Orthodox Church (1915) : 33 Convent Avenue : Officially known as the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, the building displays a characteristic onion dome. The rectory next door was built in 1920. Although most houses on this street were built in the same period, none of the Greeks lived nearby. Typically, they first lived in boarding houses or tenements or rented small houses on the periphery of the district.

Greeneville’s early workforce consisted of farmers and their families who came in from the countryside to work in the mills alongside a number of immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and England. Few mill workers lived in the village before 1840. It is likely that native-born employees were transported to the mills by wagon on a daily basis, a common practice in the Norwich area, while the Irish, many of whom had been construction workers on the dam and railroad, continued to live in temporary quarters. Within 30 years, the Irish comprised the largest single ethnic group.

Very few European immigrants arrived in Greeneville to take their place on the economic ladder, at least in the nineteenth century. In 1867 there were 2706 people living in the village: 51 percent Irish; 46 percent native-born or of English descent. The remaining three percent were either French Canadian or German immigrants; the later group may have been recruited by the mill owners as they were in Baltic. Given the size of the workforce at this time (between 1000 and 1200), it is evident that women and probably children also worked in the mills.

In 1874 Greeneville officially became part of the City of Norwich. It is clear from the close vote of the inhabitants (195-191) that almost half the voters were content with the status quo and saw no advantage to annexation. One of the first direct benefits, however, was the inclusion of the village in the city water system. Norwich’s first gasworks and electricity generating plant were built on the Shetucket River, the latter facility in the district. By 1888 gaslight illuminated the streets and some homes in Greeneville and mills and principal stores were electrified. The infrastructure of the community was completed when a sewer system was constructed in 1885.

The Shetucket Steam Engine Fire Company of 1885, mainly run by Irish volunteers, became the Greeneville Hook and Ladder, No. 2, which was housed in an impressive brick building on North Main Street before 1900.

By then the Norwich Street Railway ran up to Greeneville and in 1889 the line was electrified and went on to Taftville. The first wooden car barns of the Norwich Street Railway no longer exists, however a newer brick facility on Central Avenue housed both the Shoreline Electric and Westerly Traction trolley companies in 1905. With the shift to gasoline powered engines after World War I, the building served as a garage and repair shop for the 30 buses of the Connecticut Company. Further evidence of the dawn of the automotive age is found in the proliferation of small residential garages all over town in the 1920s and 1930s.

NOTABLE PEOPLE

There are many, many notable people who have lived and worked in Greeneville over the years. Info Source 1 provides an extensive list.

William P. Greene : Greenville is named for the industrialist, William Parkinson Greene. He was the Norwich Power Company's principal founder, formed the Shetucket Company and served as the Mayor of Norwich from 1842-1843
Father James Fitton : Father Fitton was a Catholic missionary who first came to Greeneville in 1831. He performed the first recorded baptism into the Catholic faith on May 15, 1836.

Acknowledgements

United States Park Service

Wikiwand

Norwich Bleaching & Calendering Co., 1876, by O.H. Bailey

The complete list of sources may be found by clicking the “Bibliography” button, and, then typing “Greeneville Historic District” in the SEARCH box.

Jail Hill Historic District

The Jail Hill Historic District encompasses a 19th-century working-class residential district in Norwich. It takes its name from the New London County Jail House built here in 1834. The district is located on a steep hill overlooking downtown Norwich.

The district was first populated by African Americans. The earliest settlers were free people of color who purchased homes and land here beginning in the 1830s. The Harris, Williams, Spelman and Smith families played significant roles in bringing expanded rights and education to others.

Later, in the 1840s, the neighborhood was gradually transformed into one dominated by Irish immigrants, many of whom were fleeing the Irish Potato Famine. Many of them found work in Norwich’s textile mills.

The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

NOTABLE PLACES

Norwich Female Academy (1828) : 132 School Street : The Norwich Female Academy built nearby in 1828 soon had an enrollment of 90 pupils. Historian Frances Manwaring Caulkins, who taught there, touted the delights of its rural setting and the remarkable vistas from this rugged hill, perhaps with the hope of attracting good neighbors, but soon there were plans to build the county jail there, clearly not a compatible institution. Although local historians do not make an explicit connection, it was probably no coincidence that the academy closed within a few years.
New London County Jail House (1829) : 16 Cedar Street : Norwich had been a half-shire town since 1734, with a townhouse and jail on Norwichtown Green. However, by the early 1800s the river port at Chelsea was the major population center and began to assume the institutional functions of the town and county seat. In 1829 a new townhouse, which also served as a county courthouse, was constructed downtown, near the site of the present court building. The southern slope of Jail Hill was selected for the jail, a convenient site near the courthouse, but one not actually in the downtown.
Dr. Charles Osgood Bowling Alley (1850) : 133 Cedar Street : An elongated one-story, elongated bowling alley built by Dr. Charles Osgood. Osgood was a local druggist and served as the Mayor of Norwich in 1876-1877.
Dr. Charles Osgood Cottage (1850) : 121 Cedar Street : The building is a well-preserved Italianate / Greek Revival styled cottage built by Dr. Charles Osgood in 1850. The manager of his bowling alley lived here.

NOTABLE PEOPLE

Dr. Charles Osgood : In 1840, he moved to Norwich and opened a wholesale drug store and laboratory, Charles Osgood & Co., on Shetucket Street. He was the Mayor of Norwich from 1876-1877.
Sarah Harris Fayerweather : In 1832 Prudence Crandall admitted Sarah Harris, a Norwich native of the Jail Hill neighborhood, into her school for “young Ladies and little Misses of color”. Sarah was an African American woman from a successful family, who sought to become a teacher. Local white parents were outraged, urging Crandall to expel Harris. She refused. When white parents withdrew their children, Crandall transformed her boarding school into one for African American girls. In 1970, Fayerweather Hall, a dormitory on the campus of University of Rhode Island, was named in honor of Sarah Harris Fayerweather.

THE PRUDENCE CRANDALL CONTROVERSY

In 1832 the Harris and Williams families, Jail Hill residents, were at the center of educational reform for black students. The following is a quote from Info Source 1 :

“A series of circumstances embroiled Charles Harris in the Prudence Crandall affair. In 1832 Charles was engaged to Ann Marcia Davis, a servant of Prudence Crandall. At that time Crandall ran one of the typical exclusively white academies of the period in her home in Canterbury, which she had purchased for this purpose in 1831. It is said that Harris brought The Liberator and Garrison to Crandall’s attention but more importantly, having persuaded Crandall to enroll his sister Sarah as a student, he was the unwitting catalyst for the controversy that soon erupted.

Faced with opposition from white parents, who threatened to withdraw their children, Crandall temporarily closed the school. After consulting with Garrison, Crandall was determined to reopen as a boarding school for black females. To this end she advertised in The Liberator and traveled to major cities to recruit students. When the school reopened in April 1833, four students came from Norwich’s black community, Sarah Harris and her sister Mary, Julia Williams, and Eliza Glasko.

Harassed by her neighbors and jailed in violation of Connecticut’s infamous “Black Law”, Crandall endured two court trials and an appeal to the State Supreme Court. She was represented by three white attorneys, including Norwich’s own Calvin Goddard. Since her case was thrown out on a technicality, no legal determination of the constitutionality of the law was ever made and Crandall continued to run her school.

However, in 1834, after attempted arson and mob violence threatened the safety of her students, Crandall gave up her grand effort to provide equal educational opportunities for black females and closed her school for good.”

Acknowledgements

United States Park Service

“The Faith Jennings Collection”, 1997

United States Park Service