The identity of the “firebugs” responsible for burning the Old Lyme Meetinghouse remained a mystery throughout the summer of 1907. Then an attempt to ignite the village schoolhouse in November brought two suspected arsonists to trial.
Read More disasters, First Congregational Church, Katharine Ludington, Lyme Street
Cinders rained down in the early hours of Wednesday, July 3, 1907, as fire consumed Old Lyme’s historic fourth Meetinghouse. The steeple bell tolled the midnight hour, then fell silent as flames ravaged the church, blackened the surrounding elms, and layered the town green with ash.
Read More Childe Hassam, disasters, Fire, First Congregational Church, Katharine Ludington, Lyme Street
The distinctive house with pillared veranda at the foot of Lyme Street that historian Martha J. Lamb described in 1876 as a “modern” mansion traces its origins to Albany. Erected for Benjamin Marvin, Jr. (1743–1823) ca. 1820, the two-story mid-section was built with lumber provided by his sons who had settled in the Hudson River Valley. The timbers, pre-cut in an Albany sawmill and shipped down the Hudson River, then across Long Island Sound, were assembled just south of the village green on the site of an earlier family dwelling.
Read More Albany, Benjamin Marvin, Griffin Home School, New London-Lyme Turnpike
Today a tangle of scrub trees and the Florence Griswold Museum’s paved driveway occupy the site of the historic Brick Store, a distinctive two-story building that stood for more than a century in the village.
Read More Baptist Church, Bow Bridge, Capt. Robert H. Griswold, Charles J. McCurdy, Higgins Wharf, Lieutenant River, Lyme Art Association, William Noyes