[MassHistPres] Old Town Halls

[Sarah Zimmerman]

Just fyi, when the Congregational church was officially disestablished
in Massachusetts in 1833, lots of towns whose town meetings had taken
place in the meeting house required new public spaces in which
governmental functions could take place.  I think this is one reason for
a rash of town halls, or houses, being built in the 1830s and 1840s.
Sally Zimmerman
Historic New England

>>> "Alan H. McArdle" <ahmcardle at gmail.com> 12/12/2007 3:51 pm >>>
Thanks to everyone who responded to my query. The MACRIS link worked
very
nicely. I had thought of that but hadn't got to the point of figuring
out
the query.

It looks like the 1830's and 1840's saw a big boom in building things
labeled town halls. Whately seems to have built its town hall about
midway
through the period. It looks like there are about 40 or 45 towns with
older
buildings than ours but most are at only about 10 years older. Pelham
looks
like it has the oldest.

Alan McArdle, Chair
Whately Historic Commission

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tucker, Jonathan [mailto:TuckerJ at amherstma.gov]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 3:06 PM
> To: Alan H. McArdle; masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
> Subject: RE: [MassHistPres] Old Town Halls
> 
> Pelham's Old Meeting House is still used and dates from 1743.
> 

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