Motif Number 6 - Rockingham Meeting House

     The Rockingham Meeting House sits on a hill above Route 103 between Chester and Bellows Falls.  I must have driven by it hundreds of times, thinking I should take the quick detour up Meeting House Road and have a look around.  Never did.  Always on the way to something else.

   But I stopped this weekend on the way back from fishing in Vermont.  A lone car was parked in the shade of a tree out front.  A side door was open.  A caretaker sat in a chair just in side the door, squeezing every word out of the thin local papers.  

   You can wander about as you will.  No velvet ropes here to keep you out of the pulpit or the balcony.

   It is spectacular. 

   The National Historic Landmark plaque out front describes it as a "rare 18th century New England Meetinghouse of the 'Second Period,' styled in the Georgian manner and unmatched among surviving New England meetinghouses. ... This is the most intact 18th century public building remaining in Vermont."The brochure tells us that the meetinghouse was built in the village that was the first focus of settlement in the town of Rockingham.  The town expected to expand rapidly and built a large meetinghouse to meet its needs, but as time went on settlement in the town shifted to Bellows Falls and Saxtons River.  A Congregational Church used the meetinghouse for services until 1839.  Annual town meetings were held here until 1869.

Much of what you can see today is original to the 18th century, including many glass panes in the twenty-over-twenty windows, interior plaster work, and most of the material in the box pews.  The pulpit was reconstructed in 1906, but the sounding board above it is original. The surrounding burial ground contains over one thousand graves, the oldest dating from around 1776, many with fine gravestone art.  Along the picket fence are a series of stone hitching posts.  A hearse shed and burial vault are also on the grounds.  I snap my photos.  Happy with some of them.  I need to come back, though, and get some other ones.  Different seasons and light.  More details -- door handles, cornices,  and such -- as Megan were do if she were behind the camera.  She has the eye for detail  while I'm always taking simple step-back photos, just trying to keep cars out of the frame.  So I'll be back.  The odds seem good that the meetinghouse will be here for a while.