Thanks to the research and writing
efforts of Leonard Bond Chapman (1834-1915), a Deering (now Portland),
Maine, historian, and descendant of several early Bethel families, we
now have the first detailed picture of Bethel's first meetinghouse, a
wooden structure that stood near the south (Bridge Street) end of the
present Androscoggin River bridge from 1807 to 1848. Chapman
fortunately recorded numerous details about Bethel's (and Oxford
County's) past in a series of articles entitled "Fragments of Local
History," which appeared in
The
Oxford County Citizen between 1909 and 1914.
Mentioned briefly in Dr. Nathaniel T. True's "History of Bethel"
newspaper column, which appeared from 1859 to 1861 in the town's first
newspaper,
The Bethel Courier,
and again in Dr. William B. Lapham's
History
of Bethel (1891; reprinted 1981), this meetinghouse is of major
importance to an understanding of Bethel's architectural history, as
well as its early social and religious development. Besides being
a significant structure in northern Oxford County, the meetinghouse was
an interesting "holdover" from much earlier, eighteenth century
meetinghouse and church types used in Maine, Massachusetts, and New
Hampshire. In addition to furnishing a written account of this
historic structure, Chapman made note of the Portland, Maine, building
that served as the model for the Bethel meetinghouse: the Cumberland
County Courthouse (1785-1816), illustrated opposite page 499 in the
work
Portland in the Past
(1886), by William Goold [see above]. The Bethel Historical
Society has a
copy of this book in its library holdings, and the view published
herein appears for the first time in its western Maine context.
Constructed when Bethel's population was scattered throughout the town,
with minor building clusters near what is now Mill Hill, as well as the
common at Middle Intervale, the first "West Parish Congregational
Meetinghouse" was built under the supervision of Major Amos Hills, an
early settler, justice of the peace and "house carpenter" who once
resided just west of the present Dooen (formerly "Bethel Inn") Farm off
Route 2. Chapman, in his
Citizen
articles, supports the brief account about the meetinghouse contributed
by Dr. Nathaniel Tuckerman True to the
Report of the Centennial Celebration at
Bethel, August 26, 1874—one which describes the building as
nearly square, hip-roofed and surmounted by a cupola with a tall pole
and wooden rooster. The early twentieth century
Citizen articles, however, include
information about the meetinghouse that goes far beyond the meager
accounts of the previous century.
The locating of the meetinghouse—a much-discussed issue since October
1798 when the legal voters in the West Parish (formed, along with an
"East Parish," in 1796) assembled "to determine upon a place to set a
meetinghouse"—was finally resolved in September 1806. At that
time, land for "a Common on which to erect a meetinghouse" was
purchased from John Stearns, whose farm ran along the south bank of the
Androscoggin from present-day Bridge Street/Mayville Road to Mill Brook.
Based on contemporary written records, as well as the memories of those
Bethel residents who could still recall this "ancient Congregational
meetinghouse," Chapman wrote a detailed account of its physical
appearance in July 1909, which, through lack of criticism in later
editions of the newspaper, may be considered highly accurate (the only
exception taken—noted in Chapman's column of November 3, 1910—was that
the Bethel building had more windows than the Courthouse shown in the
Portland in the Past view).
Quoting from a letter written on January 12, 1807, by Amos Hills to
relatives in Newbury, Massachusetts, Chapman wrote, "We are about
building a meeting house in our parish next summer. I have agreed
with another man to frame and finish the outside. It is to be 40
x 60 feet, with a singing loft across one end." Continuing on the
subject based on information gathered from other sources, Chapman
stated:
The
building was fashioned after the Cumberland County Court House that
stood where the Portland City Hall ruins are now seen, corner of
Congress and Myrtle streets. . . . It was two story, hip-roof, belfry
and liberty-pole which was surmounted by a wooden rooster—symbolical of
something that has not been explained in print—more indicative in the
use by a court of justice perhaps than a church society. The
first floor was an open hall where the whipping post and gallows were
exposed to view when not in use, the second was used for a court
assembly and office rooms, necessitating two rows of windows around the
entire structure . . . Such in brief is the history of the building of
which the old Bethel West Parish meetinghouse was a facsimile . . .
From an outside view the double row of windows
in the Bethel building indicated a gallery all the way around, but the
front end only contained one which was over the entry, the pulpit being
in the opposite end. The pews were of the box pattern, paneled
all around with entrance doors made to fasten upon the inside.
The seats were in two parts and constructed so as to turn up if
required when occupants stood. As large families were the rule
then, all the available space in a pew was utilized, so a short seat
was constructed at one side of the door and at the opposite end
another. Occupants of the short seats would sit facing each
other, and when seating themselves after standing, the noise of the
dropping of the seats partook somewhat of a fusillade of India crackers
in the hands of the boys, July 4th. The outside of the structure
was painted yellow at the time of erection but the inside ever remained
in its natural color.
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Though Chapman returned to the subject of the meetinghouse only
infrequently in future issues of the
Citizen,
a reading of many of these columns helps to place the building's
construction in context with the long-standing rivalry between Bethel
residents who lived at Bethel Hill (nearest the Common) and in the
"Valley" (near present-day Bridge Street/Mayville Road and the Mayville
neighborhood north of the Androscoggin River). According to
Chapman, as early as March of 1842 there were serious discussions of
the old meetinghouse's replacement, as well as of dividing the
parish—those on the north side of the Androscoggin having to cross by
ferry or by fording in the summer, and on the frozen river in the
winter, to attend church services. Only a few years later, the
West Parish society did indeed separate into two groups, those on or
near the "Hill" constructing the present West Parish Congregational
Church in 1847, and those in Mayville their own church edifice, which
was dedicated in December 1849. Of this latter structure, the
"Second Congregational Church of Bethel," Leonard Bond Chapman wrote:
The
[church] stood a short distance from the northerly end of the bridge
over the Androscoggin river, and some of the frame of the old
meetinghouse was used in its construction. It was painted white
and had a steeple . . . it was sold and during the month of May 1909,
demolished, some of the timber going into an addition to the Novelty
Works building [later the Hanover Dowel Company mill on Cross Street).
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Of the first meetinghouse, which was taken down late in 1848 (and where
the Reverend Daniel Gould, among others, preached), Chapman remarked,
"Sunshine and shower had caused the yellow-colored paint to become
unprotecting to the wear of the elements, and the color of the rooster
perched high above all his immediate surroundings had become dim, but
in other ways the building appeared to the very few who remember it
good enough with a few repairs for unborn generations, but the will of
the majority, after much discussion at diverse times, appeared by
actual account of raised hands to be against its continuance."
One of Chapman's informants, Algernon Sidney Chapman (1832-1917), not
only provided memories of the old structure, but in all likelihood the
important 1807 letter of Amos Hills, A. S. Chapman being his
grandson. From the latter, Leonard Bond Chapman may also have
gleaned the fact that Calvin Twitchell (an uncle to Samuel B. Twitchell
who lived where the Prodigal Inn is now situated) had carved the wooden
rooster weathervane by hand. (Some readers may recall the recent
sale of the more famous "Portland Weathercock," which had once
surmounted the old Cumberland County Courthouse, for an astounding
six-figure price.) The weathervane was eventually purchased by American folk art collector Nina Fletcher Little and is on display at her former summer home (now a museum), Cogswell’s Grant, in Essex, Massachusetts.
The construction and evolution of Bethel's first meetinghouse, from a
societal viewpoint, points to the significant position of the
Congregational Church—the "orthodox religious society"—in early
nineteenth century Maine. Architecturally speaking, it was not at
all uncommon, in the days when professional architects were almost
non-existent in Maine, to organize a committee which reviewed existing
structures that might serve as models. This would explain the
Portland-Bethel connection (for other local examples of this process,
see the book
Oxford County, Maine: A
Guide to Its Historic Architecture). For the modern
researcher, it is truly providential that so much information
concerning this now-lost Bethel landmark has been preserved in the
writings of the local historian Leonard Bond Chapman.