This brief summary draws from Presence in the Center, by Tom Schmidt. For more details about the church’s eventful story, its context, and its people, contact the church office to obtain a copy of this bicentennial history.
The site of the Old Meeting House was once a grove of trees where local Methodists met for worship as early as 1800, led by preachers who travelled by horseback through the wilderness to serve scattered gatherings of believers. By 1820, the local Methodists were sufficiently established to host their regional meeting at this location. Montpelier founding father Parley Davis, who lived across the street and allowed the group to meet in his barn in bad weather, had set aside several acres here in Montpelier’s geographic Center, intending this as the town’s location. In April 1822, twenty-seven subscribers formally committed to construct a church on the site.
Immediately, the area was cleared, foundation stones laid, and framing timbers shaped from a nearby grove of white pines, many over 150 feet tall. A mill just north of the site provided finish lumber, and the components were joined entirely with hardwood pegs. More than a hundred people gathered to raise the frame in late August, 1822. The steeple was constructed with an ingenious telescoping method, with higher sections hoisted up through larger lower sections. Once the basic structure was built and roofed, funding issues slowed completion; but in 1825, the meeting house was finished, and a dedication service was held in January, 1826.
Immediately, the area was cleared, foundation stones laid, and framing timbers shaped from a nearby grove of white pines, many over 150 feet tall. A mill just north of the site provided finish lumber, and the components were joined entirely with hardwood pegs. More than a hundred people gathered to raise the frame in late August, 1822. The steeple was constructed with an ingenious telescoping method, with higher sections hoisted up through larger lower sections. Once the basic structure was built and roofed, funding issues slowed completion; but in 1825, the meeting house was finished, and a dedication service was held in January, 1826.
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The church is designed in the Federal style, but along with the typical neoclassical decorative elements, there are some highly unusual features. These include the pulpit placement on the door end of the building, two aisles, a double-coved ceiling, and a curved choir balcony. The first woodstoves were added in 1854, electricity in 1966, and a furnace in 1968; otherwise, the building preserves most original details, inside and out, including the pine box pews, which were once sold to raise money for construction. Other original features include the graceful raised pulpit, the interior plaster, some of the window glass, and portions of the exterior siding, attached with hand-forged square nails. The bell, made by a Paul Revere apprentice in 1855, was donated in 1955 from the demolished Universalist church in North Montpelier. At 1800 lbs. and 39 inches in diameter, the bell proved too massive for the steeple, so a bell house was built for it just outside the church in 1966. The Memorial Garden was added in 2022.
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Curved balcony viewed from the choir loft Photograph by Tom Schmidt
(Click to view full size.) |
Photograph by Ruth Paine, 1926 (Click to view full size.)
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After building the church in the 1820s, the early Methodists thrived, with up to two hundred members and their families walking to weekly services from several miles around. Parley Davis, a Unitarian, may have influenced the stipulation in the founding documents that the building could be also used by other denominations, and this occurred for a few years. The city of Montpelier, however, quickly developed in its present location, not in the Center as Davis and others envisioned. By the 1860s, membership dwindled, and the Methodists abandoned the meeting house in the early 1870s. For decades, a few devoted families in the immediate vicinity sponsored occasional services and maintained the building. This group instituted a Sunday School program in 1914 and organized an elaborate centennial celebration in 1923. In 1924, these same stalwart supporters purchased the adjacent house to use for Sunday School, chicken pie suppers, and community events. The building underwent a major remodel in 2001 and is now known as the Parish House. |
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In the early 1950s, following decades of limited use and bare-bones maintenance, interest in the church grew to the point that regular services were resumed with part-time ministers. Then, in 1966, the Old Meeting House was formally reconstituted with its current name, a mission statement, organizational plan, and full-time pastor shared with the Old Brick Church in East Montpelier Village. Over time, the two congregations experienced logistical and theological differences, and in late 1995, Old Meeting House members chose to become an independent community. Since the late 1970s, most Old Meeting House pastors have been affiliated with the United Church of Christ, but the church officially maintains independent status, and members embrace a broad spectrum of beliefs.
In 2023, the Old Meeting House celebrated 200 years of continuous worship in this building, which was erected above a large slab of rock that may have served as a pulpit for the Methodists who once met “in the grove in the Centre.” As a pastor remarked during the 1923 centennial celebration, the Old Meeting House is truly “built upon a rock.” |
Photograph by Tom Schmidt (Click to view full size.)
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Presence in the Center: A Bicentennial History of The Old Meeting House 2023 Proceeds go entirely to The Old Meeting House. Contact Tom or Merry Schmidt for a signed copy.
$25 cash or check payable to OMH. |