The West Avon Congregational Church meetinghouse, located at 280 Country Club Road, was built in 1818. The long horse shed (left), housed the... Show moreThe West Avon Congregational Church meetinghouse, located at 280 Country Club Road, was built in 1818. The long horse shed (left), housed the horses during church services and functions. The meetinghouse was originally located across Burnham Road - and facing Country Club Road - on the corner that today belongs to the Golf Club of Avon. According to Jeannie Parker, a historian of the church, the meetinghouse was “Moved off its foundation in 1969 and rolled onto Burnham Road. It was moved north of Burnham, and then turned west into the back entrance to the West Avon Cemetery. That driveway was built for this purpose. That section of the cemetery was a field and woods at that time.” Avon’s first meetinghouse, built in 1751, was destroyed by fire in 1817. The congregation disagreed about where to build a new meeting house, so the congregation split in two and two meetinghouses were erected: the West Avon Congregational Church (1818) and the Avon Congregational Church (1819). Original title in CBH’s list for photograph #098: “W. Avon Church.” Original title on his paper sleeve: “West Avon Church Fair day Oct. 11, 1900.” Source: Howard, p. 94; Jeannie Parker’s email to Nora Howard, April 7, 2017. Restored and colorized by Motophoto 2019. The fair sold aprons, homemade candy/cakes; ice cream; auction of people’s choicest fruits and vegetables. Chicken dinner with Indian pudding, Tapioca pudding, lem-on meringue pie, pumpkin pie. Source: Hartford Courant, September 22, 1914, online. Captioned by Nora Howard, Avon Town Historian, Summer 2020. Sources: as noted and from online sources such as ancestry.com; the US Census, wikipedia, and pertinent websites. Also see Nora Howard’s essay on the Hadsell Family (also posted on Ct. Digital Archive). If you are inter-ested in conducting more research, be sure to see the collections of the Avon Free Public Library Marian Hunter History Room. These captions were completed the summer of 2020 (except as not-ed) and the library was closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Show less
