Step Inside The Historic Charm Of Scoville Memorial Library

Have you ever driven past a gorgeous work of architecture and thought to yourself "Wow, something important must have happened here"? It happens alot when I go through Hartford or New Haven, but Salisbury?

When my wife took a job in the extreme Northwest corner of Connecticut, the first impression that we got of Northern Litchfield County was there was not much here. Litchfield County has successfully raged against the overdevelopment or commercialization that has turned Fairfield, New Haven, and Hartford Counties into the metropolitan areas that they've slowly turned into in the past 100 years.

One building that stands out above most others in Connecticut though is the Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury. It looks like a house of worship at first glance, but it's way more historic in Connecticut history than I knew.

The Scoville Memorial Library is one of the first free public libraries in the United States, according to scovillelibrary.org it's story started in 1771, when Richard Smith donated 200 books to the Town of Salisbury. 39 residents contributed funds at that time to found the Smith Library. Over the next century, the library grew, and in the early 1890's Salisbury resident Jonathon Scoville left $12,000 to the town in his will for a new library.

The gray marble that still delights us today was quarried near Lion's Head Road, and despite another upgrade in 1981, it remains today as it did nearly 150+ years later. Today the Scoville Memorial Library is a not-for-profit serving as the town's library. Take a ride by and appreciate one of the most incredible buildings in Litchfield County.