HISTORIANS’ CORNER

• Details
• Parent Category: Landmark Newsletter
• Published on Thursday, 28 May 2009 14:52

OUR ARCHITECTURAL GEM
In our research and collection of information for the church records, we came across an interesting article published in the SHORE LINE TIMES in 1911. It quotes from the "Architectural Record " of New York, a citation of First Church as one of the finest examples of old church architecture in the country, the others being in Georgia, Virginia and Vermont.  "The First Congregational Church of Guilford was the third erected to house its congregation.. . . . . . It was decided on February 4, 1829, by the Society of the church to build a new meeting house after a subscription committee had found that the parish would back their sentiment with their purses.

The contract to build the church was let to Ira Atwater and Wilson Booth of New Haven for $6,500 and the size of the church was fixed at sixty feet wide and eighty feet long. The portico at the front projected six feet, and, with this addition and the tower, the total cost of the church was about $7,400. The pews were held by the original purchasers, and the church was supported by a tax assessment on all its members until 1850, when the members of the society owning pews gave them to the church by a joint deed, and the balance of the pews owned by heirs of the original owners, no longer members of the society, were purchased.

The interior has remained substantially unaltered up to the present date, except that the original galleries were lowered slightly, the organs built and the interior frescoed. The origin of the design of this church from the information I have at hand can only be conjectural; judging from the methods employed in other Connecticut churches, the size of the church was decided by vote of the congregation. Its builder had no drawings to guide him, but was governed by instructions to follow certain features of other churches fancied by the congregation. Certain points of similarity between the design of this church and that of the Center Church of New Haven and the fact the builders came from that town, make it seem probable that the earlier New Haven church was taken as a model and was followed as far as the difference in material and cost would permit.

 

Inasmuch as the "Architectural Record" is considered the highest authority in architecture in this country, people, and especially members of the First Church, should feel proud of the fact that Guilford possesses a house of worship of sufficient interest to command the attention of architectural antiquarians."

In the video (DVD-VCR), THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EARLY ARCHITECTURE OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, The Rev. Dr. John Cook who is a member of our church, awakes us to a new and different perspective of this beautiful place of worship. This is available for borrowing from the Historians’ files in the Spencer House.