The Greenfield Hill Historic District encompasses the historic village area of the village of

Greenfield Hill Greenfield Hill is an affluent historic neighborhood in Fairfield, Connecticut roughly bounded by Easton to the North, southern Burr Street/northern Black Rock Turnpike to the East, and Southport and Westport to the South and West respectively. The ...

in northern

Fairfield, Connecticut Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. Located within the New York metropolitan area ...

. The area was important from the mid-18th to 19th centuries as an intellectual center in the town, driven in part by Timothy Dwight, the Greenfield Hill Church minister and later president of

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

. The district features a variety of architectural styles from the 18th to mid-19th century. It was listed on the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1971.

Description and history

Greenfield Hill is a suburban residential area in central northern Fairfield, centered on the triangular Greenfield Hill green bounded by Hillside Road, Old Academy Road, and Bronson Road. It includes 38 principal houses or structures and 20 secondary structures, and a windmill. The district includes small streets around the Greenfield Hill Green but has a highly irregular shape extending south. It is drawn to include older, historic homes and to exclude newer, less-historic properties to the north of the green and around the listed area. and The area became important in the late 18th century when Timothy Dwight became minister of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in 1783. Dwight also established an academy (now the site of Timothy Dwight Park) at which both young men and women were educated in the classics. The school drew visiting scholars and luminaries, including

Abraham Baldwin Abraham Baldwin (November 22, 1754March 4, 1807) was an American minister, Patriot, politician, and Founding Father who signed the United States Constitution. Born and raised in Connecticut, he was a 1772 graduate of Yale College. After the R ...

, a drafter of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...

and founder of the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

, and poet and diplomat

Joel Barlow Joel Barlow (March 24, 1754 – December 26, 1812) was an American poet, and diplomat, and politician. In politics, he supported the French Revolution and was an ardent Jeffersonian republican. He worked as an agent for American speculator Wil ...

. The district, along with Southport Historic District and Fairfield Historic District is somewhat governed by Fairfield's Historic District Commission. Significant properties in the district include: *Timothy Dwight Park, site of a historic academy founded by Timothy Dwight *1650 Meetinghouse Lane, originally a

saltbox A saltbox house is a gable-roofed residential structure that is typically two stories in the front and one in the rear. It is a traditional New England style of home, originally timber framed, which takes its name from its resemblance to a woode ...

home from c. 1750 that was later remodeled extensively. Associated with

and with

*Old Cemetery, on Bronson Road *105 Meetinghouse Lane, owned by Zalmon Bradley *Greenfield Hill Congregational Church *"Old Salt Box at 1081 Hillside", a

structure that was a shop, a home, and in which the academy was started *3244 Bronson Road *3171 Bronson Road,

gambrel A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was "Dutch roof".) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, w ...

-roofed *2829 Bronson Road, which served during 1901-15 as clubhouse of Greenfield Hill Country Club, but which also is associated with agriculture shows, including one showing 52 oxen in 1906, that illustrated agricultural basis of the area *55 Meetinghouse Lane *3105 Bronson Road, the Bronson Windmill, separate listed on the National Register

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Fairfield, Connecticut Historic districts in Fairfield County, Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in Fairfield County, Connecticut Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut

Description and history

See also

References