Old North Church

His­to­ry

Locat­ed in the mid­dle of the woods on a dirt road in North Danville, the Old North Church is a trea­sured his­toric build­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly built in 1832 to seat 300 as the local reli­gious cen­ter through the com­bined efforts of four denom­i­na­tions: Free Will Bap­tists, Methodists, Con­gre­ga­tion­al­ists, and Chris­tians at a cost of $1400 of which $800 was raised by the sale of fam­i­ly box pews.  It became known as the Union Meet­ing House.  In 1868 the build­ing became the North Meet­ing House; it wasn’t until 1890 that it final­ly became the Old North Church.

Local arti­sans con­struct­ed the build­ing and it reflects their impres­sive build­ing skills in cre­at­ing a large-spanned space—a post and beam barn with a stone foun­da­tion. Heavy hand-hewn curved beams sup­port the roof and are clear­ly seen from the inside. An airy, spa­cious meet­ing room, alive with the hand­i­work of struc­tur­al techniques.

The large Pal­la­di­an win­dow, report­ed­ly one of the three of this type of win­dow in the entire state is a spec­tac­u­lar archi­tec­tur­al ele­ment of the build­ing. The win­dow is between twin entrance doors. Along each side of the build­ing are four large mul­ti-paned win­dows that light the inte­ri­or with sun­shine dur­ing the day; at night, oil lamps in each win­dow pro­vide dim lighting.

The large chan­de­lier which holds 14 oil lamps is a mechan­i­cal won­der! The chan­de­lier is hoist­ed high above the con­gre­ga­tion using sev­en lamps. By look­ing up, one can study the intri­cate rope pul­ley sys­tem that is used to raise and low­er the chandelier.

The floors are of wide wood­en plank­ing, and near the front, still vis­i­ble are the mark­ings of where fam­i­ly box pews once sta­tioned here have been removed. The cur­rent pews, which were added in 1869, reflect the light from the twelve-over-twelve win­dows that gleam in the lamp­light dur­ing evening services.

In 1868, after the rav­ages of the diph­the­ria plague, the migra­tion from Ver­mont for points west and the Civ­il War, the old church could no longer host four denom­i­na­tions and the Methodists became the sole own­ers. Dea­coness Lau­ra Buchanan, who came in 1909 and preached for about two years, was the last reg­u­lar preacher.

Arthur San­born of North Danville, long-time mem­ber of the Ver­mont Leg­is­la­ture worked to revive inter­est in the build­ing and the Lamp­light Ser­vice Com­mit­tee was formed to assist him. In 1957 week­ly Lamp­light Ser­vices were held in the sum­mer and fall. This is when work began in earnest to save the Old North Church.

1960 saw the church’s first ren­o­va­tion with the ceil­ing being com­plete­ly tak­en down to expose the hewn and pegged king truss and purlin con­struc­tion, the walls papered cov­er­ing dam­age to the plas­ter, car­pet was removed and the wide floor boards were refin­ished. With mon­ey from the freewill offer­ings from week­ly Lamp­light Ser­vices, in three years enough mon­ey was raised to cov­er the cost.

Accord­ing to the offi­cial quit-claim deed con­vey­ing the church to the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety on August 17, 1964, it was “giv­en with the con­di­tion that these premis­es be used only for events con­nect­ed with reli­gious or his­tor­i­cal pur­pos­es.” The Lamp­light com­mit­tee became the Old North Church Com­mit­tee and the folks of North Danville accept­ed the bur­den of car­ing for the church. In 1982 the build­ing was des­ig­nat­ed a Nation­al His­toric Site.

In 2004 a sec­ond ren­o­va­tion to bring the build­ing even fur­ther back to its for­mer state was made. Grants were sought and received to re-plas­ter the walls and an Adopt-a-Win­dow cam­paign spear­head­ed by Dick and Sue Strifert added finan­cial sup­port to pay for the restora­tion of all the win­dows with work being done by S. A. Fish­burn, a his­toric preser­va­tion artist, of Danville VT. The Striferts also gave the cross in the front of the church.

Addi­tion­al­ly, a par­cel of land abut­ting the prop­er­ty was donat­ed by William Stan­ton, a descen­dant of one of the ear­li­est North Danville fam­i­lies. On Sun­day, July 29, 2012 at the Old Home Day ser­vice a cel­e­bra­tion of the sec­ond ren­o­va­tion was held.

Under the Old North Church Committee’s care, the church con­tin­ues to be tend­ed with lov­ing care. Meet­ings and hymn singing, as well as wed­dings, are held and led by a vari­ety of host pas­tors and accom­pa­nied by a pump organ. No elec­tric­i­ty or run­ning water is avail­able but there is a com­fort­able state-of-the-art out­house on the site built by the Striferts.

The pul­pit was made by S. Nye Hubbell of ash at his sawmill and is still in use today. The orig­i­nal pump organ used in the church now sits next to the pul­pit in the front choir loft. It is no longer in use but a new­er pump organ from the North Danville Bap­tist Church is in reg­u­lar use at the lamp­light ser­vices. There is also a pump organ in the loft.

The church used to have two large box stoves on each side at the rear of the sanc­tu­ary until the 1900s. The stove today is a Glen­wood Oak 118 to the left of the pul­pit, although it is not used at this time.

Ser­vices

Lamp­light ser­vices are held the last Sun­day of each month from May through September.

Ser­vices start at 7:00 PM except for Old Home Day in July which starts at 6:30 PM with refresh­ments. Fol­low­ing the wor­ship ser­vice is an old fash­ioned hymn sing. Speak­ers may be reli­gious and/or his­tor­i­cal. The choir con­sists of a vari­ety of peo­ple who would like to sing for the evening.

It is rec­om­mend­ed when attend­ing ser­vices to dress for the weath­er and bring a flash­light. The freewill offer­ing is what sup­ports the church and speaker.

If you are con­sid­er­ing the church for a wed­ding, you may con­tact: Judy Park­er, 802–748-8519, for avail­abil­i­ty and a contract.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, you may con­tact a mem­ber of the Old North Church Com­mit­tee:  Alan Lang­maid, Ray & Lin­da Cloua­tre, Joan Heath Legendre, Judy Heath Park­er, Mary Ide Swain­bank, Richard Lee, Car­ole Kuligos­ki, Sal­ly Fish­burn, Kay Boyle, Chip Trem­per, Cheryl Heath, Liz Sar­gent, or the Rev. Diane Ray­mond 802–535-8559.

• The Brochure con­tain­ing this church his­to­ry was updat­ed in 2020 by Eliz­a­beth Sar­gent.  Addi­tion­al notes from North Danville Bap­tist Church web­site. dam