Churches

Confederate Dead at Dunker Church, Sharpsburg, Maryland

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Bodies of Confederate soldiers in front of the Dunker Church in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, photographed in September 1862 by Alexander Gardner. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints collection.

The scene in 2021:

The first photo is one of the most iconic images from the Civil War, showing the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam. It was taken by renowned war photographer Alexander Gardner, who captured a small glimpse of the deadliest single-day battle in American history. In the foreground are dead Confederate soldiers lined up in front of an artillery limber, with a dead horse beneath the cart. An assortment of debris is scattered around the field, including a pair of shoes in the lower right side of the scene. Further in the distance is the Dunker Church, with whitewashed walls that bear the scars that the battle had inflicted two days earlier.

The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862, between Union forces led by General George B. McClellan and Confederates led by General Robert E. Lee. It was part of Lee’s first major offensive campaign into northern territory, which was undertaken with the hopes of undermining northern morale and support for the war. After a series of smaller battles in the area, Lee took a defensive position here at Sharpsburg, Maryland. The left flank of his army was located here in this scene, in the area around the Dunker Church, and it was here that Union forces launched their attack early in the morning of the battle.

The Dunker Church had been built in 1852 as the meeting house of the German Baptist Brethren. One of the core teachings of this Christian denomination was pacifism, but ironically their church would become the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the battle. Because of its visibility on the battlefield, Union forces used the church as a landmark to focus their attacks. Throughout the morning, the ground near the church frequently changed hands, with both sides sustaining heavy casualties without making significant progress. Over the course of the battle, the fighting eventually shifted further to the south, but not before leaving the area around the church “literally carpeted with dead and dying men,” as Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson would later describe it.

By the end of the day, over 2,000 Union soldiers were dead and nearly 10,000 wounded, along with 1,500 Confederates dead and over 7,7000 wounded, making it the bloodiest day in the history of the American military. From a tactical perspective it was essentially a draw, but it was a strategic victory for the Union, since it forced Lee to abandon his invasion plans and return south to Virginia. However, the victorious McClellan faced heavy criticism. Despite having significantly more soldiers than Lee, McClellan failed to exploit this advantage during the battle, nor did he pursue Lee’s vulnerable army during their retreat to Virginia. This was characteristic of McClellan’s overly cautious methods, and it ultimately led to his dismissal by Abraham Lincoln on November 5.

In the meantime, the aftermath of the battle was extensively documented by photographers such as Alexander Gardner. The Civil War was the first major American conflict to be photographed, enabling the general public to see, for the first time, the harsh realities of war. Gardner arrived at Antietam two days later on September 19, and he spent the next few days photographing the battlefield, including scenes of dead soldiers scattered along roads and in fields. He took several different photographs of this scene in front of the Dunker Church, and it became one of his most memorable photographs of the war, perhaps because of the stark contrast between the white church in the background and the carnage in the foreground.

Following the battle, the church was repaired, as shown in the photograph in the previous post, which was taken by Alexander Gardner’s younger brother James at the end of the war. It remained in use as a church until 1899, but it subsequently fell into disrepair, in part because of souvenir hunters who damaged the vacant building by removing bricks from the walls. It ultimately collapsed in a windstorm in 1921, and the site eventually became a gas station, lunch counter, and souvenir shop.

In 1951, the Washington County Historical Society purchased the property, and then gave it to the National Park Service. It became part of the Antietam National Battlefield, and a replica church was reconstructed here on the original foundation in 1962, as part of the centennial of the battle. It still stands today, as shown in the 2021 photo, and it remains one of the most distinctive landmarks on the battlefield. Where the dead Confederate soldiers once rested is now a row of cannons, representing the Confederate artillery position here at this location. In the distant center, in front of the church, is a monument to the 5th, 7th, and 66th Ohio Infantry Regiments, which was dedicated here in 1903. Overall, the Antietam battlefield is one of the best-preserved of all the Civil War battlefields, and this scene is easily recognizable from the first photo, some 160 years later.

Dunker Church, Sharpsburg, Maryland

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The Dunker Church near Sharpsburg, Maryland, around 1862-1865. Photo by James Gardner, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints collection.

The church in 2021:

The first photo was taken by James Gardner, and it was published in 1865 in his brother Alexander’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War. It shows the Dunker Church, which had been a major landmark during the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. The original church survived the battle only to be destroyed by a windstorm in 1921, but a replica was later built on the same site, as shown in the present-day scene.

The church was built in 1852 for the German Baptist Brethren, who were also known as the “Dunkers” because of their practice of baptism by immersion. Their beliefs were related to other Anabaptist churches like the Amish and the Mennonites, and one of their core values was pacifism. In light of that, it is particularly ironic that their meeting house here would become a focal point in the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.

The Battle of Antietam was the culmination of the first major Confederate offensive campaign into Union territory. Emboldened by recent victories such as the Second Battle of Bull Run, Robert E. Lee hoped to bring the war to the north. In doing so, one of his goals was to weaken the northern morale and their willingness to fight the war. To that end, Lee marched northwest from Virginia into Maryland. Along the way, he fought battles at Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, and Crampton’s Gap, before ending up in Sharpsburg, Maryland. There, he took a defensive position just outside of the town, with his left flank positioned here in the vicinity of the Dunker Church.

The battle began early in the morning of September 17, with a Union assault on the left flank led by General Joseph Hooker. Because of its visibility on the battlefield and its location in the midst of the Confederate defenses, the church became the focal point of the Union attack. However, despite having a small numerical advantage, Union soldiers made little progress in their advance, leading to a particularly bloody scene in a corn field about a half mile to the north of the church, where both sides suffered heavy casualties.

Reflecting on the events of the battle, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson described the scene here, writing:

The carnage on both sides was terrific. The hottest fight seemed to center about Dunker Church, where there were no less than four charges and counter-charges. Each army had taken and retaken the ground until it was literally carpeted with dead and dying men.

Over the course of the morning, the battle shifted away from the church. Much of the fighting in the middle stages of the battle centered around the “sunken road” to the southeast of the church, and later in the day the fighting was even further south, in the vicinity of Burnside’s Bridge. Throughout this, neither side made significant progress. The fighting was over by early evening, leaving over 2,000 Union soldiers dead and nearly 10,000 wounded, compared to 1,500 Confederates killed and over 7,700 wounded.

Although both sides suffered similar losses, the Battle of Antietam is generally regarded as an important strategic victory for the Union. In the aftermath of the battle, General Lee abandoned his attempts to invade the north, and instead brought his army back to Virginia. He would eventually attempt one more large-scale invasion of the north less than a year later, but he suffered an even more decisive loss at Gettysburg in July 1863.

In the meantime, the Dunker Church sustained significant damage during the battle, from bullets as well as artillery fire. Photographs taken in the immediate aftermath show a number of holes in the roof and in the brick walls. However, this damage was soon repaired, and the church was back in use by 1864. The first photo was taken about a year later, showing the exterior of the repaired building. The photo was taken by James Gardner, the younger brother of prominent Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner, and it was published in Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War after the end of the war.

Following the war, the church continued to be one of the most important symbols of the battle, but it also continued to be used as a church until 1899, when the congregation moved to a new building. Now vacant, the old building deteriorated over the next few decades, assisted by souvenir hunters who helped themselves to bricks from the walls. In the end, the humble brick church that had survived one of the deadliest battles of the Civil War was destroyed by a windstorm in 1921.

The site of the church later became a gas station, lunch counter, and souvenir stand, but in 1951 the property was purchased by the Washington County Historical Society and then transferred to the National Park Service. It became part of the Antietam National Battlefield, and in 1962 the church was reconstructed on the original foundation as part of the centennial of the battle.

Today, despite the church being a modern reconstruction with very little original material, this scene still has largely the same appearance as it had in the 1860s. Antietam is one of the best-preserved Civil War battlefields, and the reconstructed church remains one of its most distinctive landmarks. The building is open to the public, and its design is based on what the interior of the original church would have looked like in 1862.

King’s Chapel Burying Ground, Boston

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The scene in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, around the 1920s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

King’s Chapel Burying Ground is the oldest cemetery in Boston, dating back to the very beginning of the European colonization of the area. According to tradition, the first burial here was Isaac Johnson, one of the wealthiest and most influential of the original settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He had extensive landholdings, but he died in September 1630, only a few months after his arrival in the New World. As the story goes, Johnson was buried on his property in Boston, and as other people died in the coming months and years, they were likewise buried here.

In reality, there is no contemporary evidence to indicate that Johnson was even buried in Boston, let alone in this specific plot of land. The earliest account of this story was written nearly 50 years after the fact, in the diary of Judge Samuel Sewall. But, one way or another, this site became a burial ground very early in Boston’s history, although the exact date is uncertain. It would remain the town’s only cemetery until 1659, when Copp’s Hill Burying Ground was established in the North End.

There are no surviving gravestones from the early burials here. The oldest is dated 1658, for William Paddy, although this stone had an interesting history. Paddy was presumably buried here at King’s Chapel, but the gravestone itself was discovered buried under the street next to the Old State House in 1830. It seems highly unlikely that Paddy would have been buried there, and there were no human remains in the vicinity, so the stone was probably removed from the burying ground at some point, perhaps in the 1700s, and repurposed as something else. In any case, it was safely returned here after its discovery in 1830, and has remained here ever since.

Gravestones became more common here during the late 1600s and early 1700s, often with highly ornate, intricate carvings decorated with images of skulls and other symbols of death. Perhaps most notable among them is the gravestone of Joseph Tapping, a large slate stone that stands at the entrance to the graveyard. It is dated 1678, and it features a scroll pediment at the top, and beneath it is a large hourglass atop a winged skull. Beneath the skull is a striking image of a skeleton, likely symbolizing death, trying to extinguish a candle while Father Time tries to restrain him. Another notable gravestone is that of Elizabeth Pain, dated 1704. It likewise features a skull and hourglass, but it also has a large coat of arms carved into it. This design somewhat resembles a capital “A,” which has led some to speculate that this gravestone inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write The Scarlet Letter.

In the meantime, in 1688 King’s Chapel was built on the southern portion of the graveyard. It was the first Anglican church in a town that was otherwise dominated by Puritanism, and this was the only land that the church officials were able to acquire. It was originally built of wood, although it was later rebuilt with stone in 1754, as shown in these two photos. The church was not at all affiliated with the graveyard, but, because of its proximity, it came to be known as King’s Chapel Burying Ground, and the name has stuck ever since.

The graveyard continued to be used throughout the 18th and into the early 19th centuries. However, by that point Boston was growing rapidly, and the old burial grounds such as this one were becoming overcrowded and, in the minds of many, posed health risks. So, in 1831 the Mount Auburn Cemetery was established in Cambridge and Watertown, in the suburbs of Boston. In contrast to the crowded, urban setting here, this new cemetery would be laid out like a rural park. And, while the old graveyards featured gravestones with grim, Puritan-era reminders of death, Mount Auburn would have monuments that were generally more neoclassical in style.

By the time the first photo was taken around the 1920s, King’s Chapel Burying Ground had not been used as an active cemetery for many decades. And, in the meantime, many of the old gravestones had been rearranged during the 19th century, evidently to create more orderly rows of stones. As a result, the location of many of the stones no longer corresponded to the site of the remains that they were intended to mark. This practice continued after the first photo was taken, and today the arrangement of the stones is very different from a century ago, as shown in the present-day photo.

Today, King’s Chapel Burying ground is a popular stop on the Freedom Trail, and a nice summer day will find many tourists circulating through the old graveyard. None of the particularly famous gravestones are readily visible in this scene, although the obelisk in the center of the photo stands out amid the otherwise relatively small colonial-era stones. It marks the gravesite of Thomas Dawes, a builder and architect who was also a militia colonel during the American Revolution. Just beyond the obelisk is a tomb that was long believed to have been the final resting place of William Dawes Jr., Thomas’s cousin. He had been one of the riders who, along with Paul Revere, warned of the advancing British redcoats before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. However, it appears that he is actually buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.

Aside from the graveyard itself, a few of the surrounding buildings are still standing from the first photo. Most notably is King’s Chapel itself, which remains an active church, although it has been a Unitarian congregation—rather than Anglican—ever since the end of the American Revolution. Further in the distance, on the right side of the scene, the other survivor from the first photo is the Tremont Building. Constructed in 1895, this office building still stands at the southwest corner of Tremont and Beacon Streets, and it is currently part of the Suffolk University campus.

Bigelow Chapel, Watertown, Mass

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The Bigelow Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown, around 1865-1885. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The scene in 2021:

As explained in an earlier post, Mount Auburn Cemetery was established in 1831 as an alternative to the small, overcrowded colonial-era burial grounds in the center of Boston. By contrast, Mount Auburn cemetery was to feature winding paths, careful landscaping, and other features that made it not only a quiet final resting place for the dead, but also a pleasant place for the living to visit.

One of the leading figures in creating and subsequently managing the cemetery was Dr. Jacob Bigelow, a physician from Boston. He was involved in the cemetery throughout its early history, including the process of designing and building a chapel here in the cemetery. Working with noted architect Gridley J. F. Bryant, Dr. Bigelow helped to design the chapel. It featured a Gothic Revival design, which was particularly popular for churches and public buildings during this period, and it was completed in 1846.

However, problems soon emerged with the chapel. The contractors had submitted a bid of $19,623 for the project, but they evidently discovered, partway through construction, that this was too low. As a result, they hired less reputable subcontractors to do some of the work, with predictable results. The most significant problem was with the stonework. They used many poor-quality stones, and many of these were not cut to the proper dimensions, which allowed water to enter between the stones. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles in the winter months soon resulted in cracks in the stones, which threatened the structural integrity of the chapel.

To fix the problem, the building had to be demolished and reconstructed, with new stones to replace the defective ones. The work was completed in 1856, resulting in a building that looked essentially the same as the original one. The first photo was probably taken within a decade or two after this, showing a large gathering in front of the main entrance to the chapel.  It would remain in use as the cemetery’s chapel until 1898, when a larger one, which was later named the Story Chapel, opened at the main entrance to the cemetery.

The older chapel, which was formally named in honor of Jacob Bigelow in 1936, then became a crematorium. It was the first of its kind in the state, and is first cremation was in 1900. Since then, the interior has been significantly renovated several times, and the building was expanded with an addition in 1970. This wing now houses the crematorium, and the old chapel continues to be used as a meeting space for various events. Overall, despite these many changes, the view of the chapel from this angle has remained largely unchanged since the first photo was taken, and it stands as an excellent example of Gothic Revival architecture.

Middle Street, Hadley, Mass

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The view looking north on Middle Street towards Russell Street in Hadley, around 1900. Image from History of Hadley (1905).

The scene in 2021:

Hadley is one of the oldest towns in western Massachusetts, having been first settled by European colonists in 1659 and incorporated as a town two years later. Its terrain is mostly flat, and it is situated on the inside of a broad curve in the Connecticut River, giving it some of the finest farmland in New England. The main settlement developed in this vicinity, with a broad town common on what is now West Street. This common was the town center during the colonial period, and it was the site of three successive meetinghouses beginning in 1670.

The third meetinghouse, which is shown here in these photos, was completed on the town common in 1808. This location was a matter of serious contention, as by the turn of the 19th century much of the town’s development had shifted east toward what is now Middle Street. Tradition ultimately prevailed, and the third meetinghouse was built on the common. However, this proved to be only temporary, because in 1841 it was relocated. The intended location was to be a compromise, located halfway between the common and Middle Street, but the movers ignored this and brought the building all the way to Middle Street, to its current location just south of Route 9.

Architecturally, this meetinghouse reflects some of the changes that were occurring in New England church designs. Prior to the late 18th century, the region’s churches tended to be plain in appearance. Many did not have steeples, and those steeples that did exist tended to rise from the ground level on the side of the building, rather than being fully incorporated into the main section of the church. This began to change with prominent architects like Charles Bulfinch, who drew inspiration from classical architecture when designing churches and other buildings. Bulfinch’s churches tended to feature a triangular pediment above the main entrance, with a steeple that rose from above the pediment, rather than from the ground.

Bulfinch does not appear to have played a hand in designing Hadley’s church, but its builder was clearly influenced by his works. It has a pediment with a steeple above it, and it also has a fanlight above the front door, and a Palladian window on the second floor. Other classically-inspired decorative elements include pilasters flanking the front entrance and dentils around the pediment. As for the steeple itself, it does not bear strong resemblance to the ones that Bulfinch designed, but the builder likely took inspiration from other 18th century New England churches. In particular, it bears a strong resemblance the steeples of churches such as Old North Church in Boston and the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Aside from moving the church to this site, the other major event of 1841 that solidified Middle Street as the town center was the construction of a town hall here. Prior to this point, town meetings were held in the church, as was the case in most Massachusetts towns in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Massachusetts was slow to create a separation between church and state, and not until 1833 did the state outlaw the practice of taxing residents to support local churches. Here in Hadley, this soon led to a physical separation between the church and the town government, although as shown in this scene the two buildings stood side-by-side on Middle Street.

While the church features Bulfinch-inspired architecture, the design of the town hall reflects the Greek Revival style of the mid-19th century. This style was particularly popular for government and other institutional buildings of the period, as it reflected the democratic ideals of ancient Greece. The town hall is perhaps Hadley’s finest example of this style, with a large portico supported by four Doric columns, along with Doric pilasters in between the window bays on all four sides of the building.

The first photo shows Middle Street around the turn of the 20th century, looking north toward the church, the town hall, and Russell Street further in the distance. The photo also shows a house on the foreground, just to the right of the church. Based on its architecture, this house likely dated back to about the mid-18th century, but it was gone by 1903, when the current house was built on the site. This house was originally the home of Dr. Frank Smith, and it was designed by Springfield architect Guy Kirkham.

Today, the town of Hadley is significantly larger than it was when the first photo was taken more than 120 years ago. Russell Street is now Route 9, a major east-west thoroughfare that has significant commercial development thanks to Hadley’s position at the center of the Five Colleges region. Likewise, Middle Street is far from the dirt road in the first photo, and it is now Route 47. However, much of Hadley has retained its historic appearance, including its extensive farmland and its many historic buildings. Here on Middle Street, both the church and the town hall are still standing. They have seen few major exterior changes during this time, and the church is still an active congregation, while the town hall remains the seat of Hadley’s town government. Both buildings are now part of the Hadley Center Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Pelham Town Hall, Pelham, Mass

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Pelham Town Hall, at the corner of Amherst Road and Route 202 in Pelham, on December 20, 1932. Image taken by Stuart D. Pike, Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission.

The scene in 2015:

The old town hall here in Pelham was built around 1743, the same year that Pelham was incorporated as a town, and it is said to be the oldest continuously-used town hall in the country. Built long before the idea of separation of church and state, it was also used as the town church for nearly a century, making it one of the oldest surviving church buildings in the state.

Pelham was settled 1739 by Scotch-Irish colonists. Most had been part of a group of immigrants who arrived in Boston in 1718, but they faced discrimination in the largely English Puritan town, and many subsequently moved to Worcester. However, they received similar treatment there, and  by the 1730s they began looking west to what was, at the time, the frontier areas of Massachusetts.

In 1738, a group of 34 settlers purchased the land that would become Pelham from Colonel John Stoddard of Northampton. They then laid out house lots and roads, and within a few years they began construction of this meeting house here at the crest of a hill near the geographic center of town. The town hired brothers Thomas and John Dick to build it, and it may have been used for church services as early as 1741, although the entire structure was not completed until 1746.

Pelham was incorporated as a town in January 1743, and the first town meeting occurred here in this building a few months later on April 19. Among the items of business was the selection of town officials. These included five selectmen, a town clerk, and a treasurer, along with a variety of other offices, including two fence viewers, two hog reeves, and two “Officers to Prosecute ye Law Respecting Killing Deer,” which was apparently an 18th century equivalent of a game warden.

With the town government established, the next step was for the town to choose a pastor. During its first few years, the church did not have its own pastor. Instead, the weekly preaching was handled by “suppliers,” who were generally short-term itinerant pastors. One such supplier was Robert Abercrombie, a Presbyterian pastor who began preaching here as early as 1742. A native of Scotland, Abercrombie graduated from the University of Edinburgh and subsequently came to the American colonies, arriving in 1740.

In May 1743, the town selected three residents who would be responsible for consulting with other local clergymen and choosing an appropriate person to become the town’s full-time pastor. This committee subsequently recommended Abercrombie, and four other pastors submitted a letter endorsing him, including Jonathan Edwards, the prominent theologian and pastor of the church in Northampton. The letter read:

Whereas we ye Subscribers have had some considerable acquaintance with Rev. Mr. Abercrombie, Preacher of ye Gospel, and what we know of his qualification by Information and personal acquaintance, we advise ye people of God in Pelham to Invite ye sd Mr. Robert Abercrombie to settle in ye Work of ye Ministrie among them as their Pastor.

This letter was dated August 30, 1743, but the next day a group of 22 residents submitted a letter of their own, stating that they “Do protest against ye proceedings of Part of ye inhabitants of ye sd town in their calling of ye Rev. Robert Abercrombie to be their minister in sd town.” The specific reasons for their objections are unclear, but they succeeded in postponing a final decision until the following March. By that point, the opposition evidently relented, and the town extended a formal call to Abercrombie, which he accepted on March 5, 1744.

Abercrombie was ordained here on August 30, 1744, with Jonathan Edwards delivering the sermon for the occasion. Edwards is often remembered for his vivid metaphors describing sin and damnation that he employed in his famous 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” but his message here in Pelham lacked the same level of intense imagery. He did, however, twice warn his audience here to “fly from the wrath to come,” a phrase that he had used in the closing part of his 1741 sermon.

Edwards’s sermon for Abercrombie’s ordination was titled “The True Excellency of a Minister of the Gospel,” based on John 5:35, “He was a burning and a shining Light.—” He used this verse to explain the role of pastors, and how they are to be a shining light to their congregation, just as John the Baptist was in this particular verse. The printed version of the sermon is nearly 9,000 words long, and likely would have taken around an hour to deliver. The first three-quarters of the sermon focused on the biblical responsibilities of pastors in general, including a grim warning about how pastors who are unfaithful in their positions will suffer torment in hell that is second only to the punishment of demons themselves.

Near the end of his sermon, Edwards turned his attention to Abercrombie. To the new pastor he declared:

You have now, dear Sir, heard something of the Nature and Design of that Office to which you are this Day, in the Name of Christ, to be solemnly set apart. You are therein called to be a Light to the Souls of Men, a Lamp in God’s Temple, and a Star in the spiritual World. And you have heard wherein, in Christ’s Esteem, consists the proper Excellency of one in that Office, and how in this a Minister of the Gospel becomes like his glorious Master, and glorifies him, and is likely to be the Instrument of the Salvation and Happiness of the Souls of Men, and to receive a glorious Reward from the Hands of God. . . .

God in his Providence has brought you far from your native Land, and from your Friends and Acquaintance there; but you will have Reason notwithstanding to acknowledge the good Hand of his Providence towards you, if he is pleased to make you a burning and shining Light in this Part of his Church, and by the Influence of your Light and Heat (or rather by his divine Influence, with your Ministry) to cause this Wilderness to bud and blossom as the Rose, and give it the Excellency of Carmel and Sharon, and to cause you to shine in the midst of this People with warm and lightsome, quickening and comforting Beams, causing their Souls to flourish, rejoice and bear Fruit, like a Garden of pleasant Fruits, under the Beams of the Sun.

Edwards then concluded by speaking directly to the people of Pelham, encouraging them to pray for and support Abercrombie:

If it be, as you have heard, the proper Excellency of a Minister of the Gospel to be a burning and a shining Light, then it is your Duty earnestly to pray for your Minister that he may be filled with Divine Light, and with the Power of the Holy Ghost, to make him so. For herein you will but pray for the greatest Benefit to your selves; for if your Minister burns and shines, it will be for your Light and Life. That which has been spoken of, as it is the chief Excellency of a Minister, for it renders a Minister the greatest Blessing of any Thing in the World that ever God bestows on a People.

Likely aware of the controversy that had divided the congregation a year earlier, Edwards then warned the residents of Pelham to not act in opposition to Abercrombie, and even implied that such people did so because the light of his teachings exposed their own personal sins:

[T]ake Heed that instead of this you don’t take a Course to obscure and extinguish the Light that would shine among you, & to smother and suppress the Flame, by casting Dirt upon it; by necessitating your Minister by your Penuriousness towards him, to be envolved in worldly Care; and by discouraging his Heart by Disrespect and Unkindness. And particularly when your Minister shews himself to be a burning Light by burning with a proper Zeal against any Wickedness that may be breaking out amongst his People & manifests it by bearing a proper Testimony against it in the Preaching of the Word or by a faithful Exercise of the Discipline of God’s House, instead of taking it thankfully, and yielding to him in it, as you ought, don’t raise another Fire of a contrary Nature, against it, viz. the Fire of your unhallowed Passions, reflecting upon and reproaching him for his Faithfulness.

He then ended the sermon on a more positive note, encouraging his hearers to:

[T]hus walk as the Children of the Light, and follow your Minister wherein he is a Follower of Christ, i. e. wherein he is as a burning and shining Light. If you continue so to do, your Path will be the Path of the Just, which shines more and more to the perfect Day, and the End of your Course shall be in those blissful Regions of everlasting Light above, where you shall shine forth with your Minister, and both with Christ, as the Sun, in the Kingdom of the Heavenly Father.

As it turned out, both Edwards and Abercrombie would go on to have turbulent relationships with their respective congregations. Edwards was dismissed from the Northampton church in 1751, and Abercrombie faced similar challenges here in Pelham. For Abercrombie, the issue appears to have centered around his refusal to baptize the infant children of parents who were living in unrepentant sin. The Presbytery in Boston ultimately suspended him in 1754 and dismissed him a year later, but he and his supporters here in Pelham did not go down without a fight. Contesting the authority of the Presbytery to dismiss him, Abercrombie refused to yield his position, and he had to be physically barred from entering the meeting house to preach.

Abercrombie would remain in Pelham for the rest of his life, farming his land while occasionally supplying the pulpit for churches in other towns. He also sued the town for pay that he believed he was entitled to, and the case dragged on for four years until the courts ruled in his favor in 1759. In the meantime, the divisions within the church prevented the town from selecting his successor for nearly a decade, so the church went through a series of “suppliers” until 1763, when a Hampshire County grand jury indicted the down for its negligence in failing to obtain a pastor.

Soon after the grand jury issued this indictment, the town selected Richard Crouch Graham, a 24-year-old Yale graduate who had evidently been one of the suppliers in the early 1760s. He was ordained as the second pastor of the church, with a salary of 60 pounds. This would later be raised to 80 pounds per year, but Graham nonetheless fell deep into debt. According to a 19th century Yale biographical sketch, “his mind gave way,” presumably under the pressure from his financial situation, and he died in 1771, a few weeks before he would have turned 32, leaving a widow and four young children.

As a result, the town was again without a pastor. However, this time it only took four years before Nathaniel Merrill was ordained as the town’s third pastor in 1775, a few months after the start of the American Revolution. While church-related issues had long been divisive here in Pelham, the question of American independence prompted little controversy, with 19th century historian Josiah Gilbert Holland later describing how, “[t]he people of Pelham were on the right side in the Revolution.” Most significantly, this included a vote at a town meeting here on June 20, 1776, when the town’s residents declared “by Unanimous Vote that we are willing to Come Under Independency from under the yoke of the King of Great Brittain.” Exactly two weeks later, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia likewise unanimously approved independence from Britain.

No battles were ever fought anywhere near Pelham during the Revolution, but the war nonetheless came at an economic cost to the town’s residents. Among other problems, the war led to ruinous inflation, causing Merrill’s salary to increase from 80 pounds in 1775 to 2,500 pounds in 1780. However, despite the town steadily raising his salary, Merrill was apparently unwilling to continue to be paid in rapidly-depreciating currency, and he left his position in 1781. That same year, Daniel Shays made his first appearance on the lists of town officers, as one of four men on the town’s Committee of Safety. He would serve in that capacity and in several other town positions over the next few years, before his name came to epitomize the economic plight of rural Massachusetts farmers.

In the meantime, Merrill’s departure meant that the town’s pulpit was once again vacant, so the town again resorted to short-term suppliers. This would, in turn, lead to the most bizarre incident in the long history of this building, involving one of early America’s most notorious con artists. It all began on a spring day in 1784, when a 19-year-old, who went by the name of Reverend Davis, arrived in town with a letter from Moses Baldwin, pastor of the church in Palmer. The letter recommended Davis as a suitable supply pastor, so the town invited him to preach for the next four weeks, at a rate of five dollars per week, plus board and horsekeeping.

As the people of Pelham would later discover, though, Davis was not his real name, nor was he an ordained minister. Rather, he was Stephen Burroughs, a Dartmouth dropout whose father, Eden Burroughs, was a pastor in Hanover, New Hampshire. Prior to arriving in Pelham, he had spent time as a “doctor” on a privateering vessel out of Newburyport. He had then returned to New Hampshire, where he found work as a schoolteacher. However, he ended up in trouble for stealing a beehive, and for his relationship with a “widow” whose husband turned out to be alive and well. Burroughs subsequently left New Hampshire, but not before making off with ten of his father’s written sermons. The doctor-turned-teacher had thus reinvented himself as a pastor, and he preached several sermons here in western Massachusetts before receiving the letter of recommendation from the credulous Reverend Baldwin.

Here in Pelham, the young “Davis” proved himself to be a capable preacher, but some of the parishioners began to become suspicious of him, especially after someone noticed that he was preaching from notes that were written on old, yellowed paper. Believing that he was merely recycling someone else’s sermons, one of the leaders in the church asked him on the following Sunday to preach from a portion of a specific verse, Joshua 9:5, which reads “And old shoes and clouted upon their feet.” However, despite the obscurity of this verse, and his minimal time to prepare, Burroughs delivered a strong sermon. He spoke of shoes as a metaphor of one’s spiritual journey through the world, and how old shoes represented old sins. In particular, he railed against the sin of jealousy, evidently targeting those who had doubted him.

His sermon was convincing, and the church responded by offering to let him continue preaching here for four more months. Burroughs remained here until September 1784, and he may have been able to continue the charade much longer if not for the arrival of Joseph Huntingdon, Burroughs’s friend from Dartmouth. He stayed in Pelham for a few days, and accidentally called Burroughs by his real name several times. Then, while Burroughs was accompanying him for part of his journey home to Coventry, they saw Justus Forward, pastor of the church in the neighboring town of Belchertown. Forward had, as his guest, another clergyman who recognized Burroughs and addressed him by his real name, despite Burroughs’s insistence that his name was Davis.

Realizing at this point that his identity had been exposed, Burroughs returned to Pelham, packed his belongings, and left town in the middle of the night, taking with him a five dollar advance that he had received for the upcoming week’s sermon. The town awoke the next morning to discover their pastor gone, and word soon arrived from Belchertown that he had been an impostor.

Pursued by angry townsmen, Burroughs made his way to Rutland, Massachusetts, where he had an acquaintance. However, the Pelham men soon tracked him down, leading to a confrontation in Rutland that left one of his pursuers with a broken arm and another with a head injury. Burroughs then armed himself with a scythe snath, entered a barn, and climbed to the top of the hayloft. In the meantime, a crowd of Rutland residents gathered along with the Pelham men, and the two groups began arguing over Burroughs. Despite the outrage of the Pelhamites, the Rutlanders seemed less concerned about the accusations, arguing that Burroughs had upheld his agreement to preach for the town, even if it was under an assumed name. Regarding the five dollars that he had received for the upcoming Sunday, they proposed that Burroughs use it to treat everyone to drinks at a nearby tavern.

This compromise proved acceptable to all parties, and Burroughs’s parishioners-turned-pursuers became his drinking companions for the evening, at least until the arrival of the man who had suffered the head injury. He rekindled the hostility toward Burroughs, and the Pelhamites decided to take him prisoner. However, with the aid of sympathetic Rutlanders, he was able to escape from the tavern.

As it turned out, Burroughs’s five months in Pelham was only the beginning of what would become a long and varied career as a con artist. He was subsequently able to talk his way into another four-week preaching stint, this time in Attleboro, Massachusetts, but he soon gave up preaching and turned his attention to the more potentially-lucrative world of counterfeiting.

With the help of one of his few remaining allies in Pelham, he made the acquaintance of Glazier Wheeler, a notorious counterfeiter. Wheeler sold his counterfeit dollars at a rate of three for a dollar, and Burroughs acquired 20 of them, which be brought to Springfield and used to purchase supplies at an apothecary, including sulfuric acid and arsenic, which were evidently needed for producing more counterfeits. However, the fraud was quickly detected, and he was arrested shortly after leaving the shop. Following his conviction, he was sentenced to stand in the pillory for an hour, and then serve three years of hard labor in jail. Within a few months, Burroughs attempted to escape by setting fire to the jail, and he was subsequently transferred to the state prison on Castle Island in Boston. He managed to escape the island with several other inmates, but they were subsequently recaptured.

Burroughs was later released, but his time in prison did little to reform his ways. He became a teacher in Charlton, Massachusetts, but soon found himself back in jail after attempting to seduce several of his students. After this incident, he left Massachusetts and eventually made his way to Georgia, where he was involved in land speculation schemes. He ended up losing money in this venture, and he later headed back north, living in northern Vermont and then in Canada. In 1798 Burroughs published a memoir detailing his life up to that point, and by the early 19th century he had resumed his counterfeiting career, this time forging American banknotes from the relative safety of Canada. However, at some point he settled down, married, raised a family, converted to Catholicism, and evidently renounced his former way of living. He remained in Canada for the rest of his life, and died in Trois-Rivières, Quebec in 1840.

Meanwhile, back here in Pelham the elderly Robert Abercrombie was still living in town during Burroughs’s five months in the pulpit. He was likely well aware of the subsequent controversy, and it is easy to imagine that he may have found some satisfaction in knowing that the town that had spurned him decades earlier had been duped by a teenaged con artist. Abercrombie would remain here in Pelham for the rest of his life, until his death in 1786, when he was in his mid-70s.

In a way, Abercrombie’s death marked the end of an era for the town, and it occurred right at the beginning of what would become the greatest crisis that the town would face in the 18th century. By the mid-1780s, America had won its independence from Britain, but the states were saddled with wartime debt. With Congress lacking the authority to levy taxes, the national government had resorted to issuing paper money to fund the war. The states issued their own paper money as well, and by the early 1780s these notes circulated far below par. Among those who had received payments in paper money were the soldiers in the Continental Army, who now returned home after the war with little to show for it except for paper money that the government might never redeem for face value.

Here in Massachusetts, the state was deeply in debt. In response, the state government, which was largely controlled by wealthy eastern merchants, raised taxes that had to be repaid in hard money, not in paper currency. This included a poll tax, which was levied on all males aged 16 and older, regardless of income. The other main tax was on property, which placed a greater burden on rural landowning farmers than on the merchants, whose wealth generally consisted of stock investments rather than land. In total, these taxes amounted to about a third of a typical Massachusetts farmer’s income, payable in scarce hard money.

Making matters worse for these farmers, they also faced new demands from their creditors. In an economy with little gold or silver in circulation, they had often paid merchants with goods from their farms. However, like the state government, the merchants were also now demanding payment in hard money. For those who were in debt to these merchants, it was nearly impossible for them to repay their debts while also meeting their heavy tax burden, resulting in many farmers losing their land to foreclosure.

Here in Pelham, life was difficult for the town’s farmers even during good times. Few of the farmers here were impoverished, but few were particularly wealthy either. Farms were generally small, and the town’s hilly, rocky terrain was hardly ideal for agriculture. This, combined with the town’s history of skepticism toward authority figures—whether it was a local pastor or a British monarch—helped contribute to the small town becoming an epicenter in a rebellion that would soon reverberate throughout the country and influence the design of the national government.

Daniel Shays, for whom this rebellion would subsequently be named, was one of these struggling Pelham farmers, although he lived in a few different places before coming to the town. Born in Hopkinton in 1747, he subsequently moved west to Brookfield, then to Shutesbury, and then to Pelham. He served throughout the American Revolution, eventually becoming a captain in the Continental Army. He even received a ceremonial sword from the Marquis de Lafayette, although he later had to sell it because of his postwar financial struggles.

Although he was a newcomer in a small town of close-knit families, Shays had no trouble finding like-minded residents with whom he could share his frustrations. About a half mile from his farm was the tavern of William Conkey Sr., and this became a gathering place for him and his rebels, where they could hold drills outside the building and discuss strategy over drinks inside. Conkey was one of the supporters of the rebellion, as was the rest of his family. Other allies of Shays included several of Robert Abercrombie’s sons, and even Ebenezer Gray, the town treasurer and church deacon who had fallen for Stephen Burroughs’s fraudulent claims several years earlier.

At the start of Shays’ Rebellion, the primary objective was to prevent courts from meeting, which would in turn prevent the courts from foreclosing on any property. To that end, the first major action in Shays’ Rebellion occurred in Northampton on August 29, 1786, when a group of about 1,500 rebels marched on the county courthouse. They succeeded in closing the courthouse, and this was followed by similar efforts in other towns, including Worcester, Concord, Springfield, and Great Barrington.

During this time, there was no national army, in part because of lack of funding and also because of fears regarding standing armies in peacetime. This meant that the Continental Congress was largely powerless against insurrections such as this, leaving it up to state militias to suppress the uprisings. However, given that many members of the militia, especially in here in western Massachusetts, were either participating in the rebellion or at least sympathetic to it, the militia was not necessarily the most reliable solution. Nonetheless, General William Shepard of Westfield managed to raise a sizable militia force here in western Massachusetts, and General Benjamin Lincoln raised a privately-funded militia in the eastern part of the state.

The climatic event of Shays’ Rebellion occurred in early 1787, when Shays and the other leaders set their sights on the federal arsenal in Springfield. With no federal soldiers to protect it, Shepard took control of the facility and guarded it with more than a thousand militiamen. On January 25, Shays approached the arsenal with a similarly-sized force, and advanced despite warning shots from Shepard. He then used cannons to fire grape shot into the insurgent lines, killing four and wounding many others. Armed with little more than swords, clubs, and old muskets, Shays and his men were badly outgunned by the well-equipped militiamen, and the rebels began to retreat.

Following the attempted assault on the arsenal, Benjamin Lincoln and his 3,000-man militia marched west from Worcester in pursuit of the rebels. Shays and much of his force ended up back in Pelham, where hundreds of his men encamped here in the area around the meeting house from January 28 to February 3. From here, Shays then moved on to Petersham, where Lincoln’s militia surprised them at their encampment, took some of them prisoner, and forced the rest to scatter.

Over the next few weeks there were several minor skirmishes, mainly in the Berkshires, but by this point the rebellion was effectively over. Nearly all of the rebels were ultimately pardoned, with about four thousand men signing confessions and taking an oath of allegiance in exchange for amnesty. Only a few of the leaders were excluded from the amnesty offer, and most fled the state, including Shays, who moved to Vermont. However, even he was subsequently pardoned in 1788 by Governor John Hancock, who took a conciliatory approach to the rebels. Shays eventually moved to upstate New York, where he lived in poverty until his death in 1825.

From a military perspective, Shays’ Rebellion was a failure. However, this attempted insurrection would prove to have significant political consequences, both at the state and national level. In 1787, the state legislature responded to some of the farmers’ grievances by lowering taxes and passing debt relief measures. During that same summer, the rebellion also had an effect on the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The fact that loosely-organized, poorly-equipped farmers had nearly taken a federal arsenal, and the fact that the arsenal required a state militia to protect it, convinced many skeptics of the need for a more powerful central government. As a result, the rebellion helped influence not only the writing of the new Constitution, but also the subsequent debate over its ratification.

Throughout all of these events, the old meeting house here in the center of Pelham remained in use as both the town hall and the church. Architecturally, the building was typical of mid-18th century meeting houses, and very different from the types of churches that would come to dominate the rural New England landscape of the 19th century. On the exterior, the building was essentially devoid of any ornamentation, and it had no steeple, which gave it an appearance more like a large colonial-era house than a church.

Another difference between this building and later churches was the interior layout. Rather than having the main entrance at one of the ends, it was located here on the south side, in the middle of one of the long walls. The high pulpit, with its sounding board above it, was located directly opposite the entrance on the north side of the building, and the pews were arranged to face it. During the mid-1700s the church had 27 pews, most of which were divided between two families. As was the case in most New England churches of the period, families purchased their pews, with prices that varied depending on the location in the church.

The interiors of colonial New England meeting houses were generally spartan, with little in the way of decoration or even religious symbolism. They also frequently lacked heat, with some Puritan-minded New Englanders even taking a certain measure of pride in their ability to sit through long sermons in frigid weather. Here in Pelham, the only heat source came from the hot coals that some parishioners would bring in foot stoves, which provided a small measure of relief from the cold. Not until 1831 would this meeting house finally get a stove, some 90 years after it had first been used for religious services.

In a sense, the installation of a stove was a sign of changing times, as Massachusetts continued to shift further away from colonial-era Puritan tradition. One major step in this process occurred two years later in 1833, when the state passed the eleventh amendment to its constitution, ending government involvement in religion. When it was first written, the First Amendment provisions in the U.S. Constitution applied only to Congress, so the individual states were not prohibited from establishing religion. Most states eventually codified religious freedom in their own laws or constitutions, but Massachusetts was the last to do so. State residents continued to be taxed to support local churches until 1833, when the new amendment declared that all religious groups “shall be equally under the protection of the law.”

Here in Pelham, this new doctrine of separation of church and state was soon followed by a physical separation between the two entities. After about a century of sharing the meeting house with the town government, the church moved into a new building of its own. It was completed in 1841, and it still stands just to the west of here. In the meantime, the old meeting house retained its role as town hall, but it was moved back in 1839, onto a portion of the burying ground behind the building. Then, in 1845 it was moved again, this time about 30 feet further north. Also in 1845, the large interior space was divided into two floors, with the upper floor being used for town meetings.

Throughout the second half of the 19th century, Pelham steadily declined in population. This trend was seen throughout rural western Massachusetts towns, as residents moved to growing industrial cities or west to seek better farmland. The town’s population had reached as high as 1,278 in the 1820 census, but two years later the eastern portion of the town was split off to create the town of Prescott. By 1900, Pelham’s population had dropped to 462, having lost nearly two-thirds of its 1820 figure.

The town’s dwindling population had also shifted west during this time. With the loss of land to Prescott, the meeting house was no longer close to the geographic center of town. In addition, by the early 20th century the majority of residents lived in the western part of town, near the border of Amherst. In 1921, residents considered a proposal to begin holding town meetings in the western village, rather than here. However, tradition won out over convenience, and the proposal was defeated by a vote of 52 to 11.

Aside from its use as a venue for town meetings, this building served several other purposes. By the turn of the 20th century the first floor housed offices for the selectmen and assessors, along with the town library and a vault for storing records. Elsewhere on the first floor was the town hearse, and the rest of the floor was used as storage space. The large space in the upper floor was, in addition to the town meetings, used for a variety of plays and other public events.

Although the town had voted to continue using the old meeting house in 1921, it soon faced a far more substantial threat in the subsequent decade. The Swift River valley, which included a portion of eastern Pelham, was being eyed as a potential water source for Boston. The project, which led to the construction of Quabbin Reservoir, would require the disincorporation of four entire towns, including neighboring Prescott, along with substantial land takings from other towns. Pelham itself would be able to remain a town, but its historic center here would be affected, since it was located directly on the watershed divide.

The first photo was taken as part of a project to document all of the buildings in the affected areas. The board in the lower right corner indicates the building’s location, along with its parcel number and other identifying information. Nearly all of the buildings that were photographed were eventually purchased by the state or taken by eminent domain, and were subsequently demolished in order to make way for the reservoir. However, both the town hall and the neighboring church were spared, although nearly all of the buildings to the east of here on the other side of US Route 202 were taken by the state.

Many of the places related to Shays’ Rebellion, including the site of Conkey’s Tavern and the farm that belonged Daniel Shays, were in the section of Pelham that later became Prescott. These sites were, in turn, taken as part of the formation of the reservoir. Neither the house site nor the presumed tavern site are underwater, but they are off-limits to the public on what is now known as the Prescott Peninsula. There is a certain amount of irony here, given that Shays and his fellow townsmen had taken up arms against the state to prevent the loss of their farms, only to have the state take that entire section of their town some 150 years later.

Today, the Pelham Town Hall is one of few remaining buildings with a direct connection to Shays’ Rebellion. It is also one of the oldest surviving church buildings in western Massachusetts. The old meeting house in South Hadley is a few years older, but it has been altered almost beyond recognition, so this one in Pelham is probably the oldest one that has retained much of its original appearance. Because of its historic significance, both the town hall and the adjacent church were designated as contributing properties in the Pelham Town Hall Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

More than 80 years after the first photo was taken, very little has changed here in this scene. The building is not used as frequently as it had been in the past, though. The town offices are now located about a quarter mile to the west of here, and since 1968 most of the town meetings are held at the elementary school in the west village. However, the town continues to hold at least one meeting here in the building each year, maintaining its distinction as  the purported oldest continuously-used town hall in the country. This unbroken streak, dating back more than 275 years, has withstood church feuds, the American Revolution, an impostor preacher, and a large-scale rebellion, and the town even managed to maintain the tradition during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a brief pro forma meeting here in October 2020.