I hope you will be able to join me on Saturday, June 13th, 2015 – 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. to celebrate Connecticut’s Open House Day. Check out my blog post on this event https://catherinewhallsmith.com/blog-2/.
The following and some additional information about where I have lived for over 40 years, can also be found on the Town of Chaplin’s website http://www.chaplinct.org . – “An extraordinary early 19th century building boom and a 20th century road improvement created Chaplin, a village suspended in time. In the late 1700’s, residents of what is now Chaplin had no town of their own. Their lands were divided among Mansfield, Hampton, and Windham. To attend church, they had to travel a considerable distance over bad roads. Benjamin Chaplin, a wealthy deacon of the Mansfield church, who built his home in Chaplin on the Natchaug River was among those who regularly made this long and uncomfortable trip to attend his duties. Before Chaplin died in 1795, he bequeathed three hundred pounds ($1,500) to form an ecclesiastical society charged with building a new meeting house on the condition that this church be built within a mile and a quarter of his homestead. This Chaplin church was built between 1812 and 1815 on Chaplin hill, a knoll along the highway a half mile from Chaplin’s home. Then between 1820 and 1850, approximately 25 homes, a tavern, a general store, a dry goods store and a merchant’s store were built along a curved portion of the major north-south route that parallels the Natchaug
River. This Winter 2014-15 picture on the right shows the church which sits directly across the street from our home. Chaplin Street, as it is now called creates a unique study in time in northeastern Connecticut. In July 1974, Chaplin Village was designated a Historic District to preserve the character of the buildings and their settings. So – SAVE THE DATE – Saturday, June 13th and enjoy our State!!!!
Catherine Whall Smith 