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Our Historic Meeting House
The Chepachet Baptist Church was gathered in 1822, and ever since, it has considered the Chepachet Meeting House to be
its home. This beautiful and authentic federal-style edifice, now in the Chepachet Historic District and on the National Register of
Historic Places, was built in the summer and fall of 1821 by a group known as "The Proprietors of the Chepachet Meeting House," who initially pledged $1135.50 to a fund created "for the purpose
of building an house for the publick worship of God to be erected at the village of Chepachet." In January 1822, the Proprietors, by then 45 in number, were granted a Charter of Incorporation by the
Rhode Island Legislature. They still own the edifice and the land on which it stands, operating under the original Charter.
The federal style of New England meeting house architecture develops originally from the works of Charles Bulfinch, Asher Banjamin, and Lavius Fillmore. The Chepachet Meeting House
was designed by Elias Carter, born in Auburn, Massachusetts, one of New England's finest and most prolific church architects of the early 19th century, and a very influential figure in the second
generation of federal church architects, which included Ithiel Town, Isaac Damon, and David Hoadley.
Carter was the designer or builder of many other surviving meeting houses, including ones in Templeton, Milford, Mendon, Granby, Holliston, and North Brookfield, Massachusetts; and in Putnam
Heights, Connecticut. Surviving meeting houses based on Carter designs for other church buildings include ones in Dublin, Fitzwilliam, Hancock, Troy, Ackworth, and Newport, New Hampshire; in
Framingham, Massachusetts; in Woodstock, Connecticut; and in Greenville, Rhode Island. Many surviving dwellings were designed by Carter, including the Governor Levi Lincoln House which stands on
US Route 20 near the entrance to Old Sturbridge Village.
The Chepachet Meeting House was built under the supervision of Chepachet's Clark Sayles, a master builder, trained as an apprentice of Carter, who also built the
Greenville Baptist Church and the North Scituate Congregational Church. It was erected on land donated in part by Amherst Kimball, an original subscriber and proprietor, who owned the adjacent
property east of the meeting house. Its original cost was about $1500.
The Meeting House is in excellent condition today. Its beams and joists are made of oak, resting on a stone foundation. There have been no major repairs to the main body of the Meeting
House during its 195-year history, but the steeple underwent a repair and restoration in 1978, during the course of which the spire was removed to the ground and later restored to the top of the
belfry. In this project, Architect Irving Haynes and Contractor Stephen Hopkins took great care to duplicate, yet strengthen, the original structure as much as possible. The Meeting House property
was recently expanded by the acquisition of two acres of adjacent land.
A vestry was added to the building in 1892, built by William H. Wellman. By tradition, it was constructed of locally-sawed lumber donated by William H. and George W. Steere. It underwent
repair and redesign in 1978, when bathrooms were added, and in 2004 when it was reconfigured to meet Rhode Island fire codes.
The granite stone steps in front of the Meeting House are original. During the first decade of the present century, stone steps were built by Senior Deacon Paul Anderton in front of each vestry door.
The granite used for these (which blends well with that of the church's foundation) came from the cellar hole of the home of William Henry Steere, a meeting house proprietor
and active church member from a century ago. The iron rails for both were donated by church member Myra Phillips. Rev. Anderton also built a handicap ramp in conjunction with the western set of
vestry steps to provide easy access to the building.
The sanctuary interior, restored in 2002, is largely original, and reflects the plain traditional meeting house style. The pew pattern was modified in the 1840's, but the only other major
modification occurred near the turn of the 20th century when the platform supporting a high pulpit was removed to make way for the installation of the E. W. Lane tracker pipe organ, whose 100th
anniversary was celebrated in 2002 after a major restoration. The organ, which cost $800, originally depended on hand-pumped bellows for its operation. Its pipes today largely mask the Bulfinch
-design palladian fan high on the north wall, which originally framed the high pulpit.
In 2002, the sanctuary underwent a serious restoration, during which the wall paper was removed, exposing the original plaster walls, which were refinished. The
woodwork, painted a silver gray by Cheryl Damon, was designed to blend with the pipes on the organ and create a unified whole which integrated the organ visually with the rest of the sanctuary.
The hymn racks were also refinished by Marilyn Brownell to blend with the oak woodwork on the organ, and a plain wooden cross, fashioned by Paul Biore, was placed to the right of the organ on the front wall. The
lectern, pulpit, and ecclesiastical platform chairs were re-upholstered in burgundy to resonate with the woodwork gray. A new carpet and new pew cushions were installed.
The sanctuary seats about 135 on the ground floor and 100 in the balconies. The pews originally had doors, and before the days of furnaces, parishioners brought hot stones,
bricks, or warming pans to provide heat in winter. Many pews still have foot rests (or "crickets"); some of the interior (under the pews, behind two balcony balustrades) remains unpainted, a very rare, but
prized, feature in surviving meeting houses.
The interior design of the vestry stems from the Victorian era. The design for the hand-stenciling at the top of the walls is believed to be original. The wooden vestry chairs, bought of
William Waterman in 1892, were probably locally made.
The steeple bell was cast in 1822 by George Holbrook of Medway, Massachusetts, and is the third oldest known surviving bell (out of 11,000) cast by Holbrook in Medawy.
It may be the first cast at the foundry he built there in 1821-1822. It hangs in a heavy wooden cradle, on the same principle as the Liberty Bell, and is rung manually with a bell rope.
Holbrook, an apprentice of Paul Revere,
together with his son George Handel Holbrook, eventually became one of America's most prolific bell founders. Holbrook bells, cast in a very special way, are known for their high musical quality,
and the Chepachet bell, which rings at F#, is no exception. The page in this website entitled Our Holbrook Bell provides more information about this very special bell and its origins, and our page entitled A List of Holbrook Bells provides the location of about 150 bells (largely steeple bells -- many still being rung) cast by this master craftsman.
The weather vane, which also serves as a lightning rod, is original and follows a pattern common to many Carter-designed churches. The pattern was
probably designed by Carter himself, based on an earlier design by Revolutionary War artist John Trumbull
used for the weathervane on the Congregational Church in Lebanon Connecticut, which Trumbull built between 1806 and 1809.
The glass panes in the Chepachet front doors, very rare in the New England Meeting House tradition, articulate three crosses and date at least from the 1870's.
The carriage shed, built in 1827 under the supervision of Jeptha Hunt, is believed originally to have had doors in front and windows in back. It was moved in 1892 when the vestry was built.
Serious repairs were made to it in the early 1950's under the supervision of Helen Brown, and again in the 1980's, under the supervision of George Steere and his sons. It underwent a major restoration
in 2012-14, underwritten in large part by a generous grant from the Champlain Foundations. At that time it was moved a short distance to a new foundation, eight feet north and eight feet west of
the original site, while maintaining its basic position with respect to the church building. The beams and trusses at both ends, many of the cross beams under the roof, the rafters, ridge pole,
and much of the frame at the back are believed to be original -- although new sills, new siding (mostly made from locally grown and sawed pine), some new posts and beams (from locally grown
and sawed oak) and a new cedar-shingled roof, were substituted when their antecedent counterparts were too rotten to be retained. It is one of two surviving meeting house carriage sheds in Rhode Island,
and one of a couple dozen left in New England.
The church has preserved and restored the two-room privy built in 1885 behind the vestry. Although technically still suited to its original function, it is now used principally for storage.
Old pictures suggest that the lawn and eastern portion of the gravel pathway stem from the nineteenth century. The lawn is well maintained today.
The ancient elms which once graced the front yard long-ago succumbed to Dutch elm disease, although we have a relatively young elm growing out of one of their roots. Two disease-resistant elms
were planted in 2013, gifts from the Glocester Heritage Society. The trees in front of the building are locusts.
The recent acquisition of land adjacent to the Meeting House paves the way for further landscaping activities which are currently contemplated.
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