wendell’s first meetinghouse
The Wendell Meetinghouse presides over the Wendell Town Common and Historic District, and like many other beautiful meetinghouses that dot New England, reflects the heart and soul of the town. The building’s story goes back to revolutionary times.
In the 1750s, families from the Lancaster, Massachusetts area began arriving in the Franklin County highlands east of the Connecticut River. Busy with the hard work of carving homesteads out of virgin forest, the settlers lived without any political or ecclesiastical organization for twenty years. Then, in 1774, a council of twenty men and thirteen women convened for the purpose of organizing a Congregational church, which met in private homes for the first nine years.
Today’s Wendell Meetinghouse, built in 1846, is a two-story, double entrance church built in the Greek Revival style. Its design and construction are attributed to Luke Leach, a master carpenter in Wendell who is thought to have built many of the Greek Revival houses around the Common.
The New Meetinghouse and Bell – 1846
Today’s Wendell Meetinghouse, built in 1846, is a two-story, double entrance church built in the Greek Revival style. Its design and construction are attributed to Luke Leach, a master carpenter in Wendell who is thought to have built many of the Greek Revival houses around the Common.
Originally, the Meetinghouse had a steeple, but it was splintered by a bolt of lightning in the 1920s. The church building was used continuously as a church until 1972; it reopened in 1981 only to close its doors again ten years later.
The church bell, still in the tower, was cast in 1846 by the G. H. Holbrook bell foundry in Medway, MA. George Holbrook apprenticed to Paul Revere and his company cast over 11,000 bells which were sent to all parts of the US, the British Provinces, Mexico and the Sandwich Islands.
Signature Found in Meetinghouse Wall
Pam Richardson, Wendell historian and genealogist, wrote in 2021:
“In the course of dismantling the wall between the privy and the main room of the Meetinghouse, builder Alistair MacMartin discovered a board on which a long-ago carpenter had left his penciled signature. The name “Ed Williams” is clearly visible, written in a lovely long hand, along with “Oct. 14, 1910” and “Wendell, Mass.”
Remembering a man I met about six years ago when I was writing my history of Wendell, I called up Bob Williams in Athol who, as I suspected, is the 79-year-old grandson of the board-signer, Edwin Williams. Interestingly, I had also just finished reading a book published by the Gill Historical Commission about Jennie Williams Bardwell, a diarist in Gill and, yes, Edwin Williams’ sister! That book (Jennie Williams Bardwell, Life in Gill 1860-1950) contains a lot of information about the Williams family and Edwin Williams in particular.”
Edwin Theron Williams had roots in Wendell going back to his grandfather, Drury Williams, who was born in Wendell in 1796. Drury’s son, Francis, was born in Deerfield in 1825, became a stone mason, and served in the Civil War. Francis’ son and our signer, Edwin, was born in Gill in 1865 and grew up to be a carpenter, specifically a preservation carpenter, and he worked on many antique houses in Deerfield. He was also a wheelwright and a clock maker.
In 1907, when he was 42, Edwin married 19-year-old Adelma Boynton of Wendell and they lived in her father’s farmhouse on Locke’s Village Road for almost a decade. Edwin must have been hired in the fall of 1910 to do some repair work on the Meetinghouse and left his signature for posterity. Edwin and Adelma’s son, Alfred Drury Williams, was born in Wendell in 1908 and his son, Robert Edwin Williams, born in Montague in 1942, is the one who lives in Athol now. Bob traveled up to the Meetinghouse in July 2021 to have a look at his grandfather’s signature, and we took a photo of him.”
The last fifty years
The Central Congregational Church had its last service in 1972. The Wendell Meetinghouse was unused for the rest of the decade, and reopened for church services in 1981. The final church services were ten years later in 1991. The Central Congregational Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 as a contributing building to the Wendell Town Common Historic District.
In 2000, Jerry Eide and Molly Kaynor of Hill Town Restorations prepared a Preliminary Condition Analysis of the Meetinghouse, identifying the need for roof repairs, exterior door and window repairs, and front sill removal and replacement. In 2002, The Friends of the Wendell Meetinghouse, founded “to preserve and restore the Wendell Meetinghouse as a center for spiritual, cultural, and community programs,” purchased the building from the Congregational Church for $1.00. (The Town of Wendell retained ownership of the land until 2021, when it was deeded to the Friends for $100.)
Each of the repairs recommended in the Preliminary Condition Analysis were conducted by 2015 in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s standards and certified in the Historic Structure Report written by Jones Whitsett Architects of Greenfield. The Wendell Meetinghouse was then declared structurally sound and ready for final renovation
Virtual Building Tour
Please take a moment to enjoy this intimate virtual tour of the Meetinghouse created by Judy Hall and Alistair MacMartin during the Spring of 2021. You can almost hear the building whispering its history as you tour through its details and beauty.