Chesterfield village has a piece of Jewish history with an interesting story that began more than 100 years ago, with exciting changes happening over the last few years and more to come in 2021.

The story started in 1887 when Harris (Hirsch) Kaplan, from Pereyaslov, Ukraine, arrived with his family in New York. Harris organized a small group of Russian Jewish immigrant friends in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and called themselves Society Agudas Achim which translates to mean Community of Brethren.

Having become aware of inexpensive farmland in Connecticut, the group took a steamer from Brooklyn to New London and arrived in Chesterfield in late 1890. By 1891 they began to purchase farms.

Impressed with the society, the Baron Maurice de Hirsch Fund in New York provided a $1,500 loan to build Connecticut’s first rural wooden synagogue and a $3,200 mortgage to construct a cooperative creamery for the production of butter, milk, and cream.

The Society Agudas Achim purchased 1.77 acres of land for their new synagogue. A brook ran on the property from Powers Ice Pond across the road, making it an ideal location for their future synagogue, mikveh (a ritual bathhouse), and creamery. Fifteen individuals signed the 1892 synagogue land purchase — B. Cohen, D. Cohen, Jacob Freiman, H. Hirsch, Falk Hollandersky, Jacob Hollandersky, Hirsch Kaplan, Bair Kasan, A Kirsch, M. Kirsch, Max Polsky, Moses Schaenen, Peretz Schwartz, H. Tannen and T. Weizburd.

The Society Agudas Achim changed its name to New England Hebrew Farmers of the Emanuel Society (NEHFES) in 1892 and served as a governing organization for the community of Jewish immigrants in Chesterfield.

At the core of a vibrant little community of about 50 Jewish families who flourished until the early 1930s was the synagogue site, farmsteads, creamery, village dance hall, a few grocery stores, the schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, swimming hole, boarding businesses and Kaplan’s son John’s general store.

The next generation in the 1930s, having attended Chesterfield’s one-room schoolhouse and Bulkeley High School in New London, left the farms, married, and started businesses in Hartford, New London and other cities.

Later the synagogue was abandoned and, in 1972, was set afire by vandals. In 1975 the synagogue was burned to the ground.

On Sept. 28, 1986, to mark this important site of Jewish history, a granite monument was dedicated near the location of the old synagogue. Its bronze plaque containing the NEHFES charter reads:

“As early as 1890, Chesterfield was one of three Connecticut communities (Ellington and Colchester the others) chosen by the Baron Maurice de Hirsch Fund of New York to resettle Eastern European Jews seeking refuge from religious persecution.

On May 8, 1892, several Russian Jewish immigrant families living in and around Chesterfield, having incorporated themselves as the New England Hebrew Farmers of the Emanuel Society, consecrated a modest one room synagogue on this site. The purpose of the society was recorded as follows in the town of Montville land records:

We, the subscribers, for the purpose of perpetuating the cause of Judaism in all its essential purity, and cherishing and promoting its great and fundamental principal (sic) in the Rock upon which our undying Faith is founded, the belief in and worship of one God, hereby unite to form a Society for public worship according to the principles and practices of our Faith.

“For over fifty years, the synagogue flourished as a vibrant religious and social center for the Jewish people of Chesterfield. To preserve and honor their memory, their dreams, struggles and achievements, we their descendants, lovingly dedicate this historic marker.”

In 2006, thanks to the efforts of Harris Kaplan’s great, great grand daughter, Nancy Savin, and Hartford attorney Karl Fleischmann, the NEHFES was reactivated as a Connecticut nonprofit corporation and took ownership of its ancestral site. In 2007, the site was named Connecticut’s 24th State Archaeological Preserve and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Major excavation of the NEHFES site was concluded in 2012. In August of this year, the synagogue foundation was partially rehabilitated using mostly original stone. Funding was supplied by the NEHFES membership and a 50% matching grant from the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office. A protective cover over the Mikveh pool was also constructed.

Some of the many businesses in this area that were started by children of these immigrants include Schneider Hardware, Gruskin Hardware, Kaplan Travel, The Juvenile Shop, Savin Bus Lines, Warren-Gilbert Insurance Company, Gilbert-Warren Realty Company, Inc., Spare Time Bowling Allies and many more.

Today there are over 40 NEHFES member descendants in 15 states in the USA and Canada, and hundreds of other descendants.

I am the great, great granddaughter of Falk Hollandersky and the great granddaughter of Jacob Hollandersky. For the last four years I have been the treasurer for NEHFES and have been happy to be a part of this dedicated group of people who have come together to preserve this piece of history for our descendants.

On Oct. 15, at the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office in Hartford, a donation agreement will be signed to transfer the title of the synagogue and mikveh parcel to The Archaeological Conservancy, the only national, nonprofit organization that identifies, acquires, and preserves the most significant archaeological sites in the United States.

This transfer will ensure that the property will be maintained in perpetuity. NEHFES will continue to work with the new owners to preserve this important part of both Connecticut’s and America’s Jewish history.

Information from this article can be found at www.newenglandhebrewfarmers.org. Nancy Butler is a resident of Waterford.