Old St. Andrew’s is a colonial parish founded in 1740 in the area of Simsbury then known as Scotland. This area is now part of Bloomfield. Old St. Andrew’s is the oldest Episcopal church in Hartford County and the 13th oldest in the Anglican Order in Connecticut .
The original small frame church was built in 1742 on land that is now part of the cemetery. It was torn down in 1811 after a new building was erected in 1806 at another location two miles south of our current campus.
Did you know?
- That Old St. Andrew’s members stood on both sides of the American Revolution which split families and friends? In 1776, second Rector, The Rev. Roger Viets, a loyalist, was arrested, tried and jailed for aiding and abetting escaped British soldiers. He was released after 6 months but confined to the geographic area within Simsbury. After the American Revolution, the parish split. Viets led some of his parishioners to British Canada. He established Trinity Anglican Church which continues today in Digby, Nova Scotia.
- That in 1828 the current church building was taken apart at the location where it was erected, and remarkably, moved on ox-drawn sled to our present location and reassembled?
- That the word “old” was added to the church name in the 1960s because the present day St. Stephen’s in Bloomfield was also named St. Andrew’s due to the parish’s moving from Hartford to Bloomfield. This created a lot of confusion and the word “old” was inserted – and it has stuck ever since. However, having a church called St. Andrew’s and another named Old St. Andrew’s was still confusing and so, the newer St. Andrew’s changed its name to St. Stephen’s a few years later.