User:Paul wainwright photography/cmh

Colonial meeting house

External Links:

[1] The Colonial Meeting House web site, http://www.colonialmeetinghouses.org, contains details of the surviving Colonial Meeting Houses in New England, together with more photographs.

References:

Speare, Eva A.: Colonial Meeting-Houses of New Hampshire. Self-published, Reginald M. Colby, Agent, Littleton, NH, 1938, revised 1955. A really good reference for colonial meeting houses in New Hampshire (she missed a few). Contains old photos, historical facts, and interesting anecdotes about these structures. An informative and entertaining read.

Sinnott, Edmund W.: Meetinghouse and Church in Early New England. Bonanza Books, New York, 1963. A very complete reference to all colonial meeting houses in the New England states. Contains photos and historical facts about many of them, and a complete index, by state, that identifies them by current architectural style.

Benes, Peter, Ed.: New England Meeting House and Church: 1630-1850. The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, Annual Proceedings 1979, Published by Boston University. Contains very informative essays on such things as architectural trends, decoration, joinery, and civil and religious practice. A few photos, but mostly information about what life was like when these structures were first built.

Benes, Peter, and Zimmerman, Philip D: New England Meeting House and Church: 1630 - 1850. Published by Boston University and The Currier Gallery of Art for The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, 1979. An exhibition catalog for a Loan Exhibition held at the Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH.

Winslow, Ola Elizabeth: Meetinghouse Hill. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York, 1972. A very complete description of all facets of colonial life. No photos. A "heavy" read.

Mallary, Peter T., and Imrie, Tim: New England Church and Meetinghouse. Chartwell Books, Secaucus, NJ, 1985. A book of beautiful photographs that documents a few of the more interesting structures, both early meeting houses, and churches from the early 1800s. Includes interesting historical information too. For my eye, the photography documents these structures well but does not treat them as artistic subjects.

Wight, Charles Albert, B.A.: Some Old Time Meeting Houses of the Connecticut Valley. The Rich Print, Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, 1911. Charles Wight was the minister of the Congregational Church in Chicopee Falls. He gives a first-hand account of meeting houses from his childhood memories.

Buggeln, Gretchen: Temples of Grace - The Material Transformation of Connecticut Churches, 1790 - 1840,. University Press of New England, Hanover, 2003. Covers a time period that is somewhat later than most of the buildings I am studying, although the information is an interesting postscript to my work.

Description:

In colonial New England, there was little distinction between faith and community. Each community built a meeting house, usually but not always through taxation, and these were used for both religious worship and town business. They were the central focus of the community, and were an important point of contact for all.

Early English settlers came to America for religious freedom from the Church of England. The Puritans, as they were called, set up a society that was free of the ornate, rigid traditions of the Anglo-Catholic church. However, the Puritans also established a religious order that was equally rigid. In America, there was religious freedom as long as you were a Puritan!

The central focus of every New England town was the Meeting House. These structures were usually the largest building in the town. They were always very simple buildings, with no statues, decorations, or stained glass. Not even a cross hung on the wall. After all, before they left, the Puritans broke all of the stained glass in the cathedrals in England!

The origin of the "town meeting" form of government, still prevalent in New England today, can be traced to Meeting Houses of the colonies.

The practice of supporting the church with tax money continued until about 1820, when individual states passed laws separating "church" and "state" (see: separation of church and state). Until that time, it was common (except in Rhode Island) to support the dominant church - referred to as the "standing order" - by taxing the citizens. In fact, in the early years a town was not granted a charter until it had built a meeting house and hired a minister. Rhode Island did not support the church with taxes because it was founded by the Baptists who were expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for refusing to pay the church tax.

The meeting houses that survive today were generally built in the last half of the 1700s. The style of many of them is remarkably similar, considering the great distances between towns, and the time it took to travel by horseback. Most were almost square, with a rather steep pitched roof running east to west. This placed the long wall toward the south for better light, and warmth in the winter. These buildings were never heated for fear of fire. There were typically 3 doors: The one in the center of the long south wall was called the "Door of Honor," and was used by the minister and his family, and any honored out-of-town guests. The other doors were located in the middle of the east and west walls, and were used by women and men, respectively. A balcony (called a "gallery") would usually be built on the east, south, and west walls, and a high pulpit would be located on the north wall.

Box pews were provided for families, and single men and women (and slaves) would typically sit in the balconies. Large multi-paned windows would be located at both the ground floor and gallery levels. It was a status symbol to have lots of glass in the windows - glass was expensive and had to be imported from England. A pulpit window, between the levels of the ground floor and gallery windows, would typically be in the center of the north wall. This window is one of the hallmarks of a colonial meeting house, and its former location can often be seen in the clapboards of structures that have been modified.

These structures have evolved over the centuries. Most that are still standing have been renovated several times to meet the needs of their owners and the styles of the times. In the early 1800s, people wanted "modern" churches that had one entrance on a short end of the building, a long isle to a pulpit on the other short end, and slip pews instead of box pews. Since meeting houses were typically built with the long wall facing the road, it was not at all uncommon to pick up the building and rotate it 90 degrees so that the new "front" door would face the street.

Also, since it took considerable affort to build a new post-and-beam end wall, the need for additional space was often accomodated by cutting the building in half, separating the front and back halves, and filling in the space between them. At this time it was also common to build steeples over the entrances, either incorporated into the building, or as part of an entrance porch that was added to the building's end. Many of the "typical white New England" church started out as a Colonial Meeting House.

An interesting variation to the "make a church" type of renovation took place in several towns when the separation of "church" and "state" took place. In these cases, the thrifty New Englanders complied with the law by building a floor at the balcony level, and using the first floor for town business, and the second floor for church. Many meeting houses thus have a floor at what used to be the balcony level.

Most colonial meeting houses have been modified beyond recognition. A few, however, have not been substantially changed at all, and are fascinating glimpses into this part of our history.