First Congregational Church (Farmington, New Hampshire)

The First Congregational Church is a historic church at 400 Main Street in Farmington, New Hampshire. Built in 1875 for a congregation founded in 1819, it is the oldest church building in the town, and a distinctive example of Gothic Revival architecture designed by New Hampshire native Frederick N. Footman. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.[1] The congregation is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.

First Congregational Church
Location400 Main St., Farmington, New Hampshire
Coordinates43°23′20″N 71°3′53″W
Built1875 (1875)
ArchitectFrederick N. Footman
Architectural styleGothic Revival
NRHP reference No.100001963[1]
Added to NRHPJanuary 12, 2018

Description and history

The First Congregational Church stands in the town center of Farmington, on the west side of Main Street (New Hampshire Route 153) at Pleasant Street. It is a red brick building, with a basically rectangular plan covered by a gabled roof. A square tower projects from the left front corner, rising 120 feet (37 m) and housing a clock and belfry before terminating in a steeple surmounted by a cross. The bell was dedicated in 1918 to the memory of politician Henry Wilson, who was a member of the congregation in his youth. The interior retains a number of original features, including chair rails, Gothic choir pews, and massive wooden roof trusses. It has a series of particularly fine stained glass windows that are original to its construction.[2]

The church was built in 1875 to a design to Frederick Footman. Footman was a native of Somersworth, who was one of the first enrollees in the architecture program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[2] The congregation was founded in 1819, and built its first dedicated sanctuary across the street in 1844. That building burned during a blizzard in 1875,[3] and the present building was constructed on land donated by a wealthy local businessman.[4]

gollark: The time of giannises was very confusing.
gollark: I figure YouTube is bound to fail eventually since it's trying to handle too many conflicting demands from various sides and not handling any that well. But for now it sort of works.
gollark: You could probably use non-youtube video hosting, but it would be annoying and hard to monetize.
gollark: I would assume making the images out of them takes some work, unless there's a convenient script for that.
gollark: Do you just spend ages manually compiling these big collages of comemnts?

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. "Farmington church named to National Register of Historic Places". State of New Hampshire. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  3. "Our History". Farmington UCC. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  4. "First Congregational Church in Farmington listed on National Register of Historic Places". Manchester Union Leader. February 1, 2018. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.