Sharon Historic District (Sharon, Connecticut)

The town of Sharon was founded in 1739, and developed economically as a crossroads town, with its greatest period of economic prosperity in the early 19th century. This resulted in a preponderance of Federal period architecture lining the town's long green, which originally extended north and south from the junction of Main Street and the Cornwall Bridge and Amenia Roads. Although the village was bypassed by railroads, it benefited economically in the 19th century from the presence of iron mines and furnaces. By the 1880s, these industries were in decline, but the tourist trade was picking up. The southern portion of the green was essentially taken over by large country estates, many either new Colonial Revival construction or significant alteration of older buildings. The flanks of the northern portion of the green continued to be filled in with Victorian houses and new civic architecture.[2]

The memorial clock tower

The historic district is an essentially linear district, several miles long, centered on the junction of Cornwall Bridge and Amenia Roads with Main Street. It extends south to the junction of South Main Street with Mitchelltown and Amenia-Union Roads, and north to Low Street. Most of the district elements lie on Main Street, but some face adjoining streets. Architecturally prominent are four church buildings, the 1893 Romanesque library, and the memorial clock tower located southeast of the main junction. Buildings separately listed on the National Register include the brick Ebenezer Gay House, now the historical society museum, the George King House, and the James Pardee House.[2]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Litchfield County, Connecticut

Media related to Sharon Historic District at Wikimedia Commons