Everything about Colonial Meeting House totally explained
==Colonial meeting house==
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 wasn't granted a
charter until it had built
a meeting house and hired a minister.
Rhode Island didn't 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 wasn't 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 effort to build a new
post-and-beam end wall,
the need for additional space was often accommodated 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.
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