USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Plymouth > The story of the Old White Church, Plymouth, New Hampshire > Part 2
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Perchance as we pass along the highway of Pleasant Valley, a name given to Route 25 by former residents, our thoughts may turn in reverence for these men and women who estab- lished the Town of Plymouth. They rest from their labors and their works do follow them.
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Chapter III
THE SECOND MEETINGHOUSE ON WARD HILL
Ten busy years had passed since the crude log meetinghouse was built, and now repairs were necessary. Yet, in 1781, many obstacles convinced the voters that to build another was inex- pedient. After the forest was cleared and the leaf-mould soil from the oaks and maples produced abundant crops, the Ameri- can Revolution had created increased taxes in the form not of money, but of food.
It is well to realize that the tax for the year 1781 was for 7056 pounds of beef from the pioneers in Plymouth. In addi- tion, several widows of soldiers and the families of others must be maintained. Fear of raids from the north, such as Vermont had suffered at Royalton, compelled the inhabitants to dispatch men to protect the frontiers when an alarm was sounded.
Although the need for a new meetinghouse was presented to the town meeting in 1783, not in that year or until 1787 was the building authorized. A committee was appointed to procure the frame, fifty-six by forty-five feet in complete order to raise. A tax of one hundred pounds was levied.
This was a stupendous undertaking. To be sure, giant oaks in the forest surrounding the village could be found that would cut a log of the required length, but to adz their trunks, cut mortise or tenon at the ends, with exact measurements, for the sills, girts, plates, crossbeams, rafters and ridgepole required strong muscles, because no machines had been invented.
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In addition to this extra task, an increase in their crops was demanded by the colonial government. Before December 25th, a total tax of one hundred and thirty-nine pounds must be pro- duced of "Merchantable wheat and pease at five shillings per bushel ($1.65) or rye at four shillings, Indian corn at three shillings, no man to pay more than one fourth of his tax in pease."
By October, the frame was ready on Ward Hill, about on the site of the one room schoolhouse, a lot that was donated by Isaac Ward to the town and to this day, according to legal authority, the title to this plot reverts to the heirs of Isaac Ward, should the town no longer claim the property. The rais- ing was accomplished "amidst the rejoicing of most of the entire male inhabitants of the town."
Not many details of this celebrated event were recorded. One unusual item states that ten pounds, one shilling was paid for beef for the noon feast. Since thirty-nine pounds was the total expense for the raising, doubtless a part of this money was to provide several barrels of rum according to the custom of the times.
Mr. George G. Clark relates that when the women, who probably cooked the feast, pleaded for a steeple, Col. David Webster, then forty-five years of age, climbed to the ridgepole, stood on his head and shouted, "I will be your steeple." From the age of nineteen, Col. Webster had fought Indians, a member of Robert Rogers' famous troop of Rangers, and was noted in the town for his ability to produce whatever he attempted to undertake.
Evidently there was some delay in the progress of the build- ing. Probably to hasten the building committee, some dis- gruntled person set fire to the log meetinghouse. As in the be- ginning of the settlement, Webster's Tavern accommodated for small gatherings, and King George's barn for Sabbath services.
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THE BARN AT THE HATCH DAIRY THE FRAME IS THE ORIGINAL KING GEORGE'S BARN THAT WAS THE MEETING PLACE IN 1788.
Among a collection of films belonging to Mr. Clark, one was discovered, marked "King George's Barn where the people attended church while the second meetinghouse was being erec- ted," and was also marked, "Hatch." Inquiry with Mr. Cecil Hatch reveals that the land on the opposite side of the highway at the Hatch Dairy was the property of the George Family un- til the present century. Mr. Hatch believes that the barn at the Hatch Dairy stood on the hill in the vicinity of the former Rutherford house, now owned by Mr. Fred Speed. The oak frame was taken apart, moved to the present location and re- built. Many of the early round borings for the trunnels, or pins, have been unused and newer borings now contain the wooden pins that fasten the frame together. To emphasize another ancient landmark, a reproduction of the film is printed among the illustrations.
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THE SECOND MEETINGHOUSE ON WARD HILL THE BELFRY WAS ERECTED UPON THIS PORCH.
In the late fall of 1788 the new meetinghouse was opened for services on Sunday. The walls had been boarded, roof cov- ered and some temporary seating provided. From records that describe the building, the illustration seems to represent the exterior appearance. Expert carpenters were often employed to frame the trusses for the roof of a building of this size since no supports were possible within the interior and the roof timbers held the walls in place by the pressure of their weight. Mr.
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Clark believed that Timothy Palmer, most famous carpenter from Newburyport, Massachusetts may have accomplished this work, judging his conjecture from later structures in this vicin- ity that were either copies of Mr. Palmer's frames, or his actual structures. Certainly the meetinghouse was properly framed to withstand the test of time.
The interior was furnished with a pulpit designed as was customary with the desk for the preacher nearly on the level of the gallery. Above this was the canopy near the ceiling, and below was the pew where the deacons sat on the Sabbath and the moderator presided at town meetings.
On the ground floor, forty-six square pews with pine pan- elled walls were sold to heads of families at a price of ten pounds each. Two relics of this furniture are now a part of the chancel of the present church. The lectern is the base of the actual pulpit that supported the floor of the projection upon which the minister stood while delivering his sermons. The pol- ished pine panel that is set into the front of the present pulpit was salvaged from the splinters of the high pulpit after the meetinghouse was demolished and Mrs. Crawford, who lived on Ward Hill, had saved the old pulpit. One day a man rushed in- to Webster, Russell's store on Main Street to report that the old pulpit was being cut up for firewood. Mr. Moody Gore hur- ried up the hill and prevented the destruction of the base of the pulpit and one of the small panels, brought them to the present church and stored them in the attic.
In the gallery that surrounded three sides of the large room, thirty pews were constructed in 1796 at a price of five pounds each. Over the east and the west doorways, porches two stories in height contained the staircases to the galleries. The sunlight poured through the panes of the forty windows to supply the only warmth for the room until 1823 when a stove was permit- ted.
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Finally in 1806, the outside of the walls were covered with clapboards and painted. Fourteen years from the date when the ninety-four voters on the tax list authorized the beginning of this construction, the cost was 574L, 6s, 8d. Of this amount, 428L, 2s, 9d was paid by the sale of the pews.
Five years after, in 1811, the inhabitants subscribed the money to erect a belfry. At that period, the entire structure was completed on the ground, and weathervane attached. With ropes and pulleys, the belfry was raised to the height of the roof of the western porch and fastened with wooden pins to a platform. Unfortunately, this belfry was not properly construc- ted and in 1815 repairs were necessary. In 1853, the belfry and supporting porch were removed and the materials were made a part of a dwellinghouse.
A subscription paper was again circulated to purchase a bell from the foundry of Paul Revere and Son in Boston. On their stock book the record remains that this bell was number 373, weight 932 pounds, price $382.27. Nobody remembers the story about what became of this bell when the belfry was demolished. A rumor exists that the metal cracked and was recast as a part of the bell that is now in the belfry of our church, which is dated 1834.
This second meetinghouse was the property of the Town of Plymouth, controlled by the vote of the citizens. Every public assembly gathered within its walls, both on the Sabbath and throughout the week. The selectmen and the minister permitted whatever use was considered proper for the public good.
Among the taxpayers were a group of dissenters who pro- tested their minister's tax, because they did not accept the doc- trine that Parson Ward proclaimed and they absented them- selves from the services and refused to pay the tax for his salary. When the tax collector attempted to assess their estates, Mr. Abel Webster appealed, with a petition signed by the dis-
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senters, at Exeter to the General Court of the Province for re- lief. Mr. Francis Worcester was then a member of the Council and he advised a compromise. The dissenters agreed to pay the taxes that were assessed until 1780, and "all persons of the Baptist principles" were excused from ministerial taxes in the future.
About 1800, Methodist preachers were zealously spreading their faith in the vicinity of Plymouth. Gradually the number of taxpayers who were excused from paying the tax for the town's minister placed a burden upon the remainder so that necessary action was demanded. Finally, in 1819 the legisla- ture of the State of New Hampshire established the "Tolera- tion Act" which stated: "Each sect or denomination of Chris- tians may associate and form Societies ... and shall have all of the corporate powers which may be necessary to assess and raise money by taxes upon the polls and ratable estates of the members of such associations & collect and appropriate the same for the purpose of building and repairing houses of public worship & for the support of the ministry." This law provided for legal means to support the denominations.
The Congregational churches immediately organized "Soci- eties." In Plymouth the Congregational Society was incorpor- ated on June 15, 1819. While many men refused to become members of the church and accept its covenant, nevertheless they desired that the church should be maintained and signed their names to become taxable members of the Society of the denomination of their choice.
An arrangement was settled with the selectmen of Plymouth to continue public worship in the meetinghouse on Ward Hill on Sabbath mornings, with a minister who received his salary from the Congregational Society. In year 1819, the member- ship of the church numbered sixty-five men and women.
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Chapter IV THE PRESENT CHURCH BUILDING
Denominational changes were developing. No longer was the Congregational Society the dominant religious group in Plym- outh. The circuit riders had accomplished their aims success- fully. To Christians of today the theological dogmas of 1820 are obsolete. Such doctrines as foreordination, predestination, back-sliding, "once grace, always grace" and many others were argued with such vehemence that members of families became estranged, parents forbade their children to marry a person of another sect contrary to their own beliefs, and bitterness be- tween denominations was prevalent.
Again reference to the novel, Elizabeth Wilson, written by Mrs. Blair, is made. Mrs. Blair was the daughter of Rev. Wil- liam Nelson, the first settled Methodist minister in Plymouth village, an educated, friendly man. He retired in 1836 and pur- chased a farm toward Hebron. He served as a selectman in Plymouth during four terms, a representative in the legislature and delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1850. His gifted daughter married Hon. Henry W. Blair, a lawyer in Plymouth who was representative to Congress and to the United States Senate. She became a member of scientific so- cieties, was State President of the New Hampshire Federation of Women's Clubs in its early years and one of the most in- fluential women in the state. Copies of her novel are found in the public library and are excellent revelations of the spirit of the times.
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In September, 1955, the tablet upon the original stone post at the head of the Mayhew Turnpike of 1804 was unveiled by Asquamchumauke Chapter, D.A.R. Standing at the right in the photo are two selectmen, William Driscoll and Harl Pease. On the left by the stone are Mrs. Gustavus U. Stewart and Mrs. Guy E. Speare. In the background are Mrs. Charles E. Moors, Mrs. Harl Pease, Mrs. Roger Hart and other members of the D.A.R. The stone marks the intersection of three high- ways.
Plymouth was progressing commercially. In the early days of the settlement West Plymouth was the industrial section. The brooks furnished power for saw and grist mills, clay de- posits caused brickyards to flourish and a pottery gave the
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name "China Street" to the old road that connects route 25 with 3A today. A corduroy road, now Main Street, extended northward through Franconia Notch in 1805 where the "Old Man" was then discovered. The first bridge over the Baker River was built in 1786 and another over the Pemigewasset River replaced the Livermores' ferry in 1797. In 1804 the May- hew Turnpike was chartered from West Plymouth to Bristol and the Haverhill Turnpike joined it in 1808. The Coos Road to Portsmouth from Haverhill was Highland Street and stage coaches began to travel over this network of highways.
A store was opened on Main Street by Jabez Hatch Weld in 1790 and Moor Russell came to Plymouth from Haverhill and established his business near the site of the present post office in 1798. Soon he was sending the produce of the entire country- side to Portsmouth in wagons drawn by eight horses while trade also began southward to Boston. Thus the trade center of today was determined at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Most important for our topic, the Methodist denomination so increased its membership that a brick church building was erected in West Plymouth in 1830, and a wooden building on Main Street in 1833. Their church rolls equalled or exceeded the list of members in the Congregational Church. The times demanded action. The meetinghouse on Ward Hill needed re- pairs, but the Congregational Society refused to share in the expense. Politics were beginning to bring into the town meetings discussions of a nature that seemed to desecrate the house on week days while new sects sought to occupy it on Sabbath aft- ernoons.
The Society debated a new building of its own, but many people would not consent to abandon the meetinghouse where they had worshiped since childhood. In crises a leader appears, and in 1830 Rev. George Punchard was installed-a young, in- spiring preacher who infused a religious awakening. The meet-
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inghouse was crowded during three successive days, people coming from surrounding communities to attend this revival.
Suddenly, without a vote of the Society, three men, John Rogers, William W. Russell and Noah Cummings, assumed financial responsibility for a new building near Main Street. Rev. Punchard secured plans at a cost of $50.00. The logs for the frame were cut across the river in Holderness, drawn to the site of the present O'Brien's store and there adzed to the required lengths.
The site was purchased from Grafton County with the consent of Mr. William Webster, son of Col. David Webster, who inherited the property of his father that consisted of the land now the center of the village, the one hundred acre lot that Col. David drew in Hollis. William Webster sold the section where the court house and the church are standing to Grafton County with a reservation in the deed that no part of this could be sold without his consent. The restriction in the deed to the Society is worthy to be noted: "That the house shall be forever appropriated to the worship of God by Christians of the Con- gregational Trinitarian order and that no portion of said pew holders shall have the right of appropriating said meetinghouse any portion of the time for public worship by any other order or denomination of Christians."
The frame was raised on July 4, 1836, the dedication was held in the last week in December, and the first regular service was held on January 1, 1837. The meetinghouse on Ward Hill continued to be used by the town. Frequently repairs became necessary until the building became a storehouse and was fi- nally sold at auction in 1865. Twelve years later the building was torn down and the frame was set up for a saw mill near the falls on Beebe River in Campton. The mill burned in 1884.
Christmas Day in 1836 was a sad one for many old resi- dents when Rev. George Punchard conducted the "leave tak-
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ing" service in the Ward Hill Meetinghouse. For the text of his sermon he chose Exodus 25: 15, "If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence," possibly with the intention of reconciling the regrets of those who were reluctant to abandon their childhood sanctuary.
No longer did the inhabitants walk barefooted to meeting as in the beginning of the services in the log meetinghouse. On New Year's Day, no doubt snow covered the landscape. Be- fore nine o'clock in the morning families from the farms were starting with their ox-teams, the usual conveyance, and by ten were arriving at the door of the church. Down from Ward Hill rode the Isaac and Arthur Wards, the William and Nathaniel Drapers, and King George and his five sons. Over Thurlow Hill came the family of Noah Cummings, a sponsor of the new building. From their homes in the village walked the house- holds of Moor and William Russell, also sponsors; William Webster, the tavern keeper; Dr. John Rogers and his two sons, Nathaniel Peabody, famous abolitionist, and John Jr. the third sponsor; Deacon Alpha McQuesten, tanner and pioneer glove manufacturer; and William Green, banker and church treas- urer, also many others whose names are no longer heard in the town.
The village was small with only three streets: Webster, Main and the "Rumney Road," now Highland Street. Since 1825 important sites had been occupied. The covered bridge, "Pont Fayette"; the Rogers, later known as the Sargent resi- dence, on Main Street and Moor Russell's brick mansion were of that year, also the new court house. The village common was then a steep, gravel bank without the shade of an elm. Moor Russell built his brick store in 1825, razed for the present post office building. Several horse sheds occupied the site of the former bank, now the Rural Electrical Office Building. Next was the new Congregational Church, the Court House of Graf-
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THE CHURCH, COURT HOUSE, AND NEW HOLMES ACADEMY IN 1851. TO THE LEFT OF THE CHURCH IS "SQUIRE" LEVERETT'S LAW OFFICE AND ABOVE IT THE ROOF OF THE FIRST CHAPEL MAY BE SEEN. NOTE THE "DISH COVER" TOP ABOVE THE BELFRY OF THE CHURCH
ton County and the new Plymouth Holmes Academy, the last two with pillared porticoes, and the three belfries made an im- posing array. The grass grew to the main street where a line of hitching posts were set along the margin.
The walls, roof and belfry, except the cupola, of the church were as today and the same window frames with many panes of glass. Entering the vestibule, the congregation found an ar- rangement exactly opposite to the old meetinghouse. Mr. Pun- chard had purchased a design according to the modern plans of the famous architect, Charles Bulfinch, who turned the seat- ing arrangement and aisles lengthwise of the auditorium and placed the pulpit against the narrow north wall. Along either side of the two aisles were sixteen pews, each with a door that fastened by a brass button. In the two front corners were sev- eral "wing" pews on either side of the box-like pulpit that was raised on a platform, yet much lower than at the Ward Hill meetinghouse.
At the ends of the aisles, below the pulpit, were cast iron box stoves, the stove pipes entering a chimney on either side of the pulpit, against the wall. The one person who realized the heat of the wood fires was the minister and he actually swel- tered as the temperature increased.
Two concessions to former customs are still here: the raised platforms upon which the wall pews rest and the gallery that is over the vestibule, then extended above the four rear pews. The front seats in the gallery were reserved for the choir; per- sons who preferred balcony pews, sat in the rear. Whether the custom was established that the audience faced the choir dur- ing the singing is not remembered. A tale is related that when the organ and choir were moved to the front of the room, sev- eral persons insisted upon turning to face the balcony as was their custom and change was impossible for them.
Missing were a carpet, cushions, a musical instrument, and
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lights. In the attic of Mrs. Harl Pease is stored a bass viol that was presented to the church in 1838. Kerosene was not con- sidered a safe illuminating fluid until 1849.
After the morning sermon, we can imagine that maple fuel was added to the fires and women and children gathered around the stoves to open their wooden lunch boxes while they enjoyed the exchange of village and family news. The men hastily fin- ished their snacks and repaired to the tavern for discussions of the points in the sermon and politics. One wonders what the housewives packed for those Sunday lunches. Doubtless slices of homegrown wheat or corn bread, with ham, cheese, molasses or maple sugar cakes and jugs of milk, the latter served in the brown mugs that were fashioned in the potteries in West Plym- outh. The noon hour was soon over and again the audience as- sembled for the afternoon sermon. How impossible for the youth of today to comprehend the slow motion of the oxen as they turned homeward after the Sabbath services of a century and a quarter ago.
Unfortunately harmony did not reign. Within three months the sponsors began to express their disappointment when the sale of the pews did not meet their expectations, the beginning of a controversy that was not settled until 1851, then without discharging entirely the obligations for the investment by the three sponsors.
Also, a minority petitioned the Society to sanction Sabbath services in the Ward Hill meetinghouse one third of the time, a proposition that was voted down. Then a most critical prob- lem confronted the wardens. To review our United States his- tory, the Mexican War was fought in 1836 over the claims of Texas. With this territory ceded to the United States, its ad- mission to the Union was sought as a slave state.
In Plymouth lived Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, a respected
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citizen and lawyer, and active supporter of anti-slavery. He in- vited William Lloyd Garrison to visit in his home and requested that Mr. Garrison be permitted to lecture in the church. Vio- lently opposed to admitting Texas, Mr. Garrison advocated secession of the northern states from the Union. While the at- titude of the wardens and the minister was in agreement with anti-slavery sentiments, they were not ready to accept the views of Mr. Garrison.
In New Hampshire, slavery was legal. Col. David Webster paid sixty pounds for two negro slaves, Cisco and Dinah, who served their master in his tavern and were lying beside him in Trinity Cemetery. Other slaves had been owned in the town. The wardens decided that Mr. Garrison should not lecture in their church. When he arrived, one day in March, he spoke in a grove in Holderness about his anti-slavery principles. So much bitterness was aroused that annually a committee was ap- pointed to determine on what occasions the church should or should not be opened.
These situations proved detrimental to the health of Rev. Punchard. He was ordained here at the age of twenty-four years, and by the inspirations of his sermons the membership of the church increased constantly. He organized the first Sun- day School. In the community his activities included his ap- pointment as agent to collect funds that rebuilt Holmes Acad- emy building and two new dormitories. One of the latter is now the east section of the Pemigewasset Hotel, the other the home of Mrs. Ernest L. Silver, formerly the Leverett residence. In 1842, Mr. Punchard's voice failed and he was obliged to retire from the ministry after fourteen years of successful pastorate.
Changing customs in the form of worship and the appoint- ments in the building kept pace with the times. The years 1868, 1893-95, and 1928 saw extensive renovations.
The beginning of changes was in the heating arrangements.
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The two stoves below the pulpit were of little comfort to the congregation and considerable discomfort to the preacher above them. Soon they were placed in the rear of the room with open- ings cut through the partition into the vestibule so the doors of the stoves opened into the vestibule for fuel replenishment, con- venient for the janitor but hazardous for fire. Next the stoves stood within the audience room. Meanwhile the stove pipes extended above the aisles, with wood smoke and dripping creo- sote exuding all the way to the chimneys beside the pulpit, un- til in 1893 the building was elevated, a basement excavated and two furnaces were installed there. Again in 1951 the heating system was modernized with oil replacing the coal.
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