Parish House Opened

1. The building committee’s report, Charles E. Gross, and Joseph Twichell all thanked the ladies’ advisory committee, which consisted of Susan T. Clark, Ellen Gross, and Mary Tryon Stone.
2. The building committee’s report also thanked Jeremiah Allen, acknowledging that he was the reason Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company was involved with the project.
3. Gross said that he wanted to see the clock run every week rather than every other week.
4. Gross also hoped that the church would provide Twichell with an assistant.
5. Jeremiah Allen handwrote a memoir of the formation of the church.

Contracts were awarded for the construction of the parish house prior to May 22, 1903.

The church would propose an addition to the parish house on April 18, 1939.

1. Charles E. Gross said that the “ladies were to be congratulated for the successful results of their efforts, for it seemed it was necessary for the ladies to take hold to obtain the results, as it was in the raising of the Bunker Hill monument and the Gold street improvements.”
2. Gross “hoped that now the house was completed, other things would be accomplished. He would like to see the clock in the spire kept going every week instead of every other week and hoped that the church would follow the example of the South Church and provide Mr. Twichell with an assistant.”
3. “Mr. Twichell closed with complimentary and facetious references to Charles Hopkins Clark, Rev. Dr. George M. Stone, Rev. E. deF. Miel, Rev. Rockwell Harmon Potter, and Rev. Dr. E. P. Parker, the speakers who succeeded him.”
4. Rockwell Potter “liked the idea of a church home and wished all people would learn to be at home in the church. It should be a familiar place to them, where they might spend many happy evenings and thus find a home within the church.”
5. “Of the 114 original members of the church which was organized in March, 1865, there are eighteen living, sixteen women and two men, Charles C. Strong and William B. Willard. Of those who were members during the first five years of the church, fifty-six are living, forty women and sixteen men.”

1. The ceremony was considered to be a special meeting of the building committee.
2. Atwood Collins was president of the Asylum Hill Congregational Society’s committee.
3. The building committee was comprised of Charles S. Black, William H. Corbin, Samuel G. Dunham, John M. Ney, and Charles E. Thompson. Corbin was president of the committee.
4. Jeremiah Allen died just before the project was completed.
5. Charles Hopkins Clark worked for the Courant.
6. George M. Stone was pastor of the Asylum Avenue Baptist Church.
7. Rockwell Potter was pastor of the Center Congregational Church.
8. Ernest deF. Miel was rector of Trinity Episcopal Church.
9. Edwin Parker was pastor of the South Congregational Church.
10. The total cost of the parish house was $26,025.16, which would be $802,130.52 in 2021.

Swartz, Melva J., “Hill Church Will Observe Anniversary,” Hartford Courant, March 18, 1940, page 1.

Unattributed, “Fiftieth Anniversary of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church,” Hartford Courant, February 14, 1915, page X5

Unattributed, “In New Parish House – Asylum Hill Church People Take Possession,” Hartford Courant, February 13, 1904, page 6.