When you’re viewing an art exhibit at the Slater Museum in Norwich, you’re standing in the Converse Gallery, designed by the architectural firm of Cudworth & Woodworth in 1906. Just across the way on the Norwich Free Academy campus is the Tirrell building, designed by the same firm in 1909.

One of the partners, Walter Woodworth, was from a Quaker Hill family who made their fortune manufacturing paper, but Walter’s life took a different path.

This story starts in 1856 when Walter’s grandfather, Oliver Woodworth, bought the W&J Bolles paper mill, located behind today’s Quaker Hill elementary school. Nearby Hunts Brook (the source of the facility’s power), Old Mill Road, and Woodworth Drive are reminders of that enterprise. Oliver’s timing was good. The advent of the New London-Northern Railroad through Quaker Hill in 1849 greatly improved access to markets, enabling the paper industry to enjoy a boom that lasted for decades. The enterprise continued as a family business well into the 20th century.

Oliver’s son, Henry (Walter’s father), worked at the mill for a time, then went to Colchester, where he retooled the Hayward Rubber Company for paper manufacturing. After that, Henry worked as a pattern maker in New London for the D.E. Whiton machine shop on Howard Street, and then for Hopson & Chapin boiler makers on Hamilton Street.

In addition to civic work and his manufacturing interests, Henry ran the Quaker Hill post office out of his home. In its announcement of Henry’s appointment as postmaster, The Day noted that “It will be a great convenience to the many residents and manufacturers of the vicinity who now have their mail come to New London or Montville.”

Henry’s house was a quirky little place known as “the house in the middle of the road” -- literally in the middle of the Old Norwich Road. The house is gone now, but it had a productive life of its own. Besides its use as a private residence and post office, over the years it was a stable on the stagecoach route, a grocery store, a gas station, a convenience store, and the headquarters of the Waterford Guardian newspaper.

Henry’s son, Walter, was born in 1874. He may have had some type of chronic condition because his obituary noted that he was in failing health long before his death in 1915. Still, this sickly man managed to accomplish a lot in 42 short years.

He married and had three children. He was trained in construction and worked for a time as superintendent of construction and estimating for the W.E. Hiscox Company. In 1901, he joined E. A. Cudworth, where, in a matter of just a few months, he became a partner.

From what I’ve read, the business wasn’t prospering, but once Walter came along, things seem to have picked up briskly. Over the course of 14 years, Cudworth & Woodworth designed the NFA properties already mentioned, a magnificent mansion in Norwich, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Danielson, two Norwich banks, one bank in Plainfield, the Norwich State Hospital, and the Mansfield State Training School. Both the hospital and training school are on the National Register of Historic Places because of their historic and architectural importance.

The Mansfield Training School is closed and the remaining buildings have been repurposed. Most of the Norwich State Hospital buildings have been demolished, except the administration building, which is being preserved for future development. Still, much of Walter’s brick and mortar legacy lives on and continues to grace our state.