Torrington Historical Society

Candlelight Holiday tours at the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum
2025-12-17 17:00 - 18:00, 2025-12-17 18:00 - 19:00, 2025-12-17 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
Candlelight Holiday tours at the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum
Take a guided tour of one of Connecticut’s notable house museums, decorated for the Christmas season. Operated by the Torrington Historical Society, the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum, built in 1900, features original family furnishings, impressive woodwork, painted and stenciled walls, and collections of fine and decorative arts. During the holiday season the house takes on a special ambiance when it is decorated with Christmas trees, vintage ornaments, wreaths, greenery, and white lights. Antique toys from the Society’s collection will also be on display and the dining room table will be set for Christmas dinner with linens, fine china, silverware and crystal from the Hotchkiss collection. Tours are for the first and second floors of the home.
Evening Tour Admission:
$15 Non Members; $8 for Torrington Historical Society members and children 10 and under.
Register using the following link
Candlelight Tours

Daytime Holiday Tours at the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum
2025-12-18 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-12-18 14:00 - 15:00, 2025-12-18 15:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-19 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-12-19 14:00 - 15:00, 2025-12-19 15:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-20 13:00 - 14:00, 2025-12-20 14:00 - 15:00 and 4 more dates | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
Daytime Holiday Tours at the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum
Take a guided tour of one of Connecticut’s notable house museums, decorated for the Christmas season. Operated by the Torrington Historical Society, the Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum, built in 1900, features original family furnishings, impressive woodwork, painted and stenciled walls, and collections of fine and decorative arts. During the holiday season the house takes on a special ambiance when it is decorated with Christmas trees, vintage ornaments, wreaths, greenery, and white lights. Antique toys from the Society’s collection will also be on display and the dining room table will be set for Christmas dinner with linens, fine china, silverware and crystal from the Hotchkiss collection. Tours are for the first and second floors of the home.
Day time Tours Admission:
$12 Non Members; $5 for Torrington Historical Society members and children 10 and under.
To Register please use the link below:
Daytime Holiday Tours

2026 Event Calendar Coming Soon!!
2026-01-31 | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790

Insights into Black History and Culture - Celebrate Black History Month with Dr. DeLois Lindsey and Effie and Angaza Mwando of Our Culture is Beautiful
2026-02-17 18:30 - 19:30 | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
Torrington Historical Society is pleased to partner with Our Culture is Beautiful for a program celebrating Black History and culture.

The Art of American Independence: Beyond the Declaration with Robin Hoffman and Jodi Stiffelman of ArtScapades
2026-02-25 18:30 - 19:30 | https://torringtonhistoricalsociety.org/event/the-art-of-american-independence-beyond-the-declaration
Torrington Historical Society welcomes ArtScapades for a lecture that you can watch in your own home via ZOOM during these cold February days!
ArtScapades will present paintings that depict America as it fought to break from British rule and create an independent country. This lecture looks at how artists depicted the events that led up to the Revolution, the Battles that raged during the conflict, the creation and signing of a Declaration of Independence and images that reflect the early days of a new country.
This lecture includes works by John Trumbull, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, John Singleton Copley, Emanuel Leutze, Grant Wood, Jacob Lawrence, and others as well as a painting from the Torrington Historical Society’s collection by Torrington artist Charles Besozzi.
Robin Hoffman and Jodi Stiffelman, of ArtScapades, began teaching art appreciation in 1998. They have presented at libraries, art centers, and museums in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida.

Liberty's Gender, Women, Popular Culture & The American Revolution with Professor Leslie Lindenauer, WCSU
2026-03-12 18:30 - 19:30 | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
Presented by Professor Leslie Lindenauer, WCSU
Details and link to program coming soon!

Grandmother Moon, Author Reading with Wunneanatsu Lamb-Cason
2026-04-18 14:00 - 16:00 | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
Wunneanatsu Lamb-Cason will read from her new book “Grandmother Moon” and share examples of traditional stories. She will also discuss the importance of oral tradition in Indigenous communities and her process of bringing these stories into written form. Books will be available for purchase and can be signed by the author.
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Wunneanatsu Lamb-Cason is an award winning educator, traditional storyteller, author and advocate whose work centers on truth-telling, representation and equity in education. A former high school history teacher, she was named the 2024 National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehman Institute of American History – the first Indigenous educator to receive this honor. She now serves as the Assistant Director of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Brown University. Wunneanatsu’s grandmother, beloved indigenous educator Trudie Lamb Richmond, lived on Schaghticoke lands along the Housatonic River in northwestern Litchfield County.

Reconnected: Restoring the Rivers of Long Island Sound
2026-04-29 18:30 - 19:30 | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
In Connecticut alone, there are more than 5,000 dams, most no longer serving their original purpose. Many of these structures disconnect access for fish and wildlife to up and downstream habitat for breeding, feeding, and nursery grounds. They can also disrupt water flows and trap natural sediments that Connecticut’s remaining coastal marshes – already hemmed in by development – desperately need to keep pace with sea-level rise. And as precipitation patterns change and storms become more intense, the risk of failure in aging or inadequately sized dams increases. Removing dams will help reconnect and create more climate resilient river systems, unblock critical habitats, and reduce risk to communities.
Emily Hadzopulos is the Freshwater Restoration Project Manager for The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut, working alongside partner groups like the Long Island Sound River Restoration Network to advance collaborative stream connectivity and restoration projects across Connecticut.
Aimee Petras is the Executive Director for the Farmington River Watershed Association, a non-profit working in Connecticut and Massachusetts to protect and restore the Farmington River and its Watershed through research, education, and advocacy. The FRWA team is actively working on barrier removals across the Farmington River Watershed to improve connectivity within the watershed and to Long Island Sound.

The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America with author Kostya Kennedy
2026-05-13 18:30 - 19:30 | Torrington Historical Society, 192 Main Street, Torrington, CT, 06790
On April 18, 1775, a Boston-based silversmith, engraver, and anti-British political operative named Paul Revere set out on a borrowed horse to fulfill a dangerous but crucial mission: to alert American colonists of advancing British troops.
Revere was not the only rider that night, and indeed, he had completed at least 18 previous rides across New England and other colonies, disseminating intelligence about British movements. But this ride was like no other, and its consequences in the months and years to come—as the American Revolution morphed from isolated skirmishes to a full-fledged war—became one of our founding legends.

In this presentation Kennedy will discuss his book in which he presents a dramatic new narrative of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, informed by fresh primary and secondary sources researched in archives, family letters and diaries, contemporary accounts, and more. Kennedy reveals Revere’s ride to be more complex than it is usually portrayed—a loosely coordinated series of rides by numerous men, near-disaster, capture by British forces, and finally success.
Kostya Kennedy is the Editor in Chief of Premium Publishing at Dotdash Meredith, overseeing special editions under People, LIFE, EatingWell, Real Simple, Health, TIME and others. He was former assistant managing editor and senior writer at Sports Illustrated, staff writer at Newsday and has written for numerous outlets including The New York Times, Time, and The New Yorker.
Along with The Ride, Kennedy has written True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson and the NYT’s bestsellers 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. His television work includes appearances as a contributing analyst and commentator on the MLB network, as well as appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers and Morning Joe. He has an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, from which he received a Pulitzer Fellowship and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Stony Brook University.
