Church Street-Congress Street Historic District

Church Street and Congress Street form the oldest part of Moravia, a village at the southern tip of Owasco Lake. The district covers Church, Park and Congress Streets and parts of South Main, William and Smith Streets. It holds 123 contributing resources, mostly detached houses with carriage barns on small village lots. Early buildings show New England influence, including the 1823 Federal style Congregational Church with its three-stage bell tower and flanking parapets, and the 1815 Hall/Powers House, where Millard Fillmore married in 1826. The only stone house in Moravia, built in 1831, also stands here. Greek Revival houses of the 1830s and 1840s give way to many Italianate houses from the 1860s and 1870s, in wood and brick, reflecting the village's prosperity. Three Second Empire mansions, two based on a Bicknell and Comstock pattern book, are among the finest buildings. Churches, the 1880 Powers Library and the 1924 high school add institutional variety.