First Church, Ludlow Mass

The First Church of Ludlow, at the corner of Church and Center Streets, around 1912.  Image from The History of Ludlow, Massachusetts (1912).

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The church in 2015:

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The building in the first photo was the third meeting house for the First Church of Ludlow.  The first one stood right about where I took the second photo from, but was moved across Church Street in 1841, when the second church building was completed.  This one didn’t last long, though – it burned in 1859, and was replaced later in the year with the one seen above.  The third building stood for over 120 years, but it too burned, in a suspicious fire in 1980.  It was rebuilt on the same spot in 1982, and today, like many other “First Churches” in New England, it is part of the United Church of Christ denomination.

First Meetinghouse, Ludlow Mass

The First Meetinghouse building on Church Street in Ludlow, around 1912. Image from The History of Ludlow, Massachusetts (1912).

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The building in 2015:

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Built in 1783, this is one of the oldest church buildings in the Connecticut River Valley, although it hasn’t functioned as a church in over 170 years.  It doesn’t look much like a church, but it actually hasn’t changed much in exterior appearance over the years.  The white, steepled churches that we commonly associate with New England towns were not yet universally adopted in the late 1700s.  Particularly in small towns, simple structures like this were still common, as seen in other places like Rockingham Vermont, where a similar-looking meeting house was built around the same time.

A steeple wasn’t the only thing that many of these early meeting houses lacked, though – another one was heat.  Some, like the one in Rockingham, still don’t have heat over 225 years later.  However, here in Ludlow a stove was finally installed in 1826.  Fifteen years later, a new church was built, and the old one was sold to Increase Sikes for the princely sum of $50 and moved across Church Street to its present location; it had previously been in what is now the triangle of land between Church Street and Center Street.  Sikes soon sold it back to the town, and it was used for town meetings until 1893, when the town offices were moved to the rapidly-growing industrial village along the Chicopee River in the southwest corner of town.

For many years, the building was used as a Grange Hall, until the town purchased it again in 2000.  Since then, the building has been restored, and it forms an important part of the Ludlow Center Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

First Congregational Church, Wilbraham Mass (1)

The First Congregational Church on Main Street in Wilbraham, probably around 1900. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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The church on fire after being struck by lightning on July 5, 1911. Image courtesy of the Wilbraham Public Library.

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The site of the church in 2015:

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In many New England towns, one of the main features of the town center is a historic 19th century Congregational church, usually painted white and complete with a tall steeple.  However, that isn’t the case in Wilbraham, in part because of a series of fires that destroyed the first three meetinghouses that were located on this site.  The First Congregational  Church in Wilbraham was established in 1741 as an offshoot of the Springfield church.  As was the case in many other towns, however, the location of the meeting house became a major political issue.  In the days before automobiles, it was particularly advantageous to live near the meeting house, and in Wilbraham the settlers in both the northern part of town (present-day Wilbraham) and the southern part (present-day Hampden) wanted a meeting house location that was convenient for them.  Eventually, a compromise was reached and the meeting house was built on Wigwam Hill, halfway up a mountain in a sparsely-populated location that presumably only worked because it was equally inconvenient to everyone.

Eventually, however, it began to make sense to have a meeting house in the center of town, so in 1794 the church moved to this location on Main Street.  It wasn’t just the congregation that moved, though.  In true Yankee frugality, the building itself was moved down the mountain and over to this site, where it stood until 1857, when a new church building was completed.  The old meeting house was moved and used as a stable until 1877, when both generations of Wilbraham churches were destroyed in a fire.

The third meeting house, which is shown in the first photo here, was completed in 1878 and was used until 1911, for reasons that the second photo makes very clear.  On July 5, 1911, the steeple was struck by lightning, and the resulting fire consumed the entire church.  I don’t know how long it had been burning by the time the photograph was taken, but it is a ghostly image, with the skeletal remains of the steeple silhouetted against the flames in the background.

Following the fire, the church merged with the Methodist church to form the Wilbraham United Church.  They alternated between the rebuilt church at this site and the Methodist church next to the Wilbraham Academy campus until 1935, when the church here became their full-time home.  However, the congregation began to outgrow that building, so a fifth-generation Wilbraham church was built a short distance away in 1958; this building is still in use today.  The 1911 church was demolished in 1962, and today the site of the first four Congregational churches in Wilbraham is now a public park.

Center Street, Rutland Vermont (2)

Another view looking east on Center Street from Merchants Row in Rutland, taken around 1907-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company collection.

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Center Street in 2015:

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These photos were taken from nearly the same location as the ones in this post, but the historic photo here shows the north side of Center Street as it appeared in the years following the 1906 fire that destroyed most of the left-hand side of this scene.  Since the first photo was taken, though, not much has changed.  Some of the buildings have been altered, such as the Rutland Savings Bank building on the far right, but otherwise all of the prominent buildings from the early 20th century are still there today, including the Mead Building on the left, which is situated at the corner of Center Street and Merchants Row and replaced the earlier Bates House Hotel that had been destroyed in the fire.  Today, the entire area is part of the Rutland Downtown Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

State and Main Streets, Springfield Mass

Foot’s Block at the southwest corner of State and Main Streets in Springfield, around 1892. Image from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

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The location around 1910. Image from View Book of Springfield (1910)

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The building in 2015:

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The site now occupied by 1200 Main Street has had its share of historic buildings over the years. Thomas Bates built a tavern here in 1773, which operated well into the 19th century. On the surface, it was a popular stagecoach tavern that regularly entertained visiting dignitaries like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. However, it also operated clandestinely a stop on the Underground Railroad. It stood here until 1847, when it was moved a few lots west on State Street, as seen in this post, which gives more details about its history.

After the old tavern was moved in 1847, businessman Homer Foot built Foot’s Block, the building seen in the 1892 photo here.  It didn’t take long for Foot to find tenants for the commercial and office space in the building; in 1851,the newly-incorporated Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company rented office number 8 in the building as their original company office.  The company would later move to their own building a few blocks up Main Street, but by the first decade of the 20th century they had moved back to the corner of Main and State.  However, instead of renting a single suite as they had some 50 years earlier, they demolished Foot’s Block and replaced it with the 12-story tower that stands there today.

The building was completed in 1908, and at 125 feet it is the same height as the steeple of Old First Church.  In response to the construction of this building. and because of fears that the city would be overtaken by modern skyscrapers, the Massachusetts legislature set 125 feet as the height limit for any building in Springfield, a law that stood until 1970.  As a result, despite being over a century old it is still tied for 7th tallest building in the city.  MassMutual didn’t stay here for too long, however.  In 1927 with a continually-expanding company and little room in downtown, MassMutual moved to their present-day home a few miles up State Street in the Pine Point neighborhood.  Menawhile, the historic office building here at the corner of State and Main is now owned by MGM Springfield, who plan to preserve the building for MGM’s offices once the casino is built adjacent to it.

Saint John the Baptist Church, Ludlow Mass

Saint John the Baptist Church on Hubbard Street in Ludlow, c.1906-1913.  Image courtesy of the Hubbard Memorial Library.

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The church in 2015:

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This church, like Saint Paul’s Methodist Church just down the street, was built on land donated by the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates.  Because of its location along the Chicopee River, this part of Ludlow was developing into a mill town, and as a result many Catholic immigrants began moving into what had previously been a Protestant town.  Catholic mill workers had previously traveled across the river to Indian Orchard to worship, but in 1906 Saint John the Baptist Church opened as the first Catholic church in Ludlow.  To the left of the church is the rectory, which was completed in the same year as the church.  Today, it’s no longer the only Catholic church in town, but it remains an active congregation , and its appearance hasn’t changed much in the past century.  The angle of the present-day photo is a little off, though.  The spot that the original photo was taken is now a house, which was probably built for workers at Ludlow Manufacturing who attended the church across the street.