Beaver Meadow Union Chapel

Coordinates: 43°45′52″N 72°22′27″W / 43.76444°N 72.37417°W

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Beaver Meadow Union Chapel
U.S. National Register of Historic Places

View from Beaver Meadow Road
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Location	North side of Beaver Meadow Road, Norwich, Vermont
Coordinates	43°45′52″N 72°22′27″W / 43.76444°N 72.37417°W / 43.76444; -72.37417
Area	0.1 acres (0.040 ha)
Built	1915 (1915)
NRHP reference No.	95000185^[1]
Added to NRHP	March 09, 1995

The Beaver Meadow Union Chapel, now also known as the West Norwich Union Church, is a historic church on the north side of Beaver Meadow Road in Norwich, Vermont. Built in 1915, it is a well-preserved example of vernacular ecclesiastical architecture of the period. It is of national significance as the origin point of the Home Prayers program, essentially a mail-order ministry inspired by the catalogs of Sears, Roebuck. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.^[1]

Description and history

The Beaver Meadow Union Chapel stands on the north side of Beaver Meadow Road, just west of the crossroads village of West Norwich. It is a simple single-story wood-frame structure, with a steeply pitched gable roof, clapboard siding, and stone foundation. A square tower rises from the roof near the front, with an open belfry capped by a pyramidal roof. The main facade has an unadorned entrance at the center, with simply framed sash windows on either side, and above in the belfry. A kitchen ell extends to the left of the main building. The interior retains many of its original finishes and furnishings.^[2]

The church was built in 1915 at the instigation of Margaret Kerr. She was a New York City schoolteacher who agitated for its construction after a drunken brawl occurred in front of her home. The site on which it was built originally had a Methodist church on it; it had been moved to Sharon. The church was built by its future congregants, and was served by ministers operating from nearby Hanover, New Hampshire, mainly during the warmer months. One of them, Rev. Allen W. Clark, seized upon the idea of mailing written elements of a service (including lessons and sermon) to congregants in periods when the church was not in service. This idea grew into the Home Prayers program, which had more than 23,000 subscribers from 850 churches when Clark retired in 1977.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
^ ^a ^b "NRHP nomination for Beaver Meadow Union Chapel". National Park Service. Retrieved 2016-05-31.

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National Register of Historic Places in Windsor County, Vermont

National
Historic
Landmarks

Districts

Buildings

Commercial	Aiken Stand Complex Fox Stand F. H. Gillingham & Sons Locust Creek House Complex Charles Marsh Law Office Pollard Block Progressive Market Simons' Inn Windsor House
Educational	Abbott Memorial Library Beaver Meadow School Black River Academy Eureka Schoolhouse Hartford Library Ludlow Graded School Park Street School Root School South Reading Schoolhouse Spencer Hollow School
Government	Damon Hall Fire District No. 2 Firehouse Reading Town Hall
Industrial	Bridgewater Woolen Mill Royalton Mill Complex
Religious	Beaver Meadow Union Chapel Cavendish Universalist Church Congregational Church of Ludlow Old Christ Church St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Residential	Atherton Farmstead Augustus and Laura Blaisdell House Twing Buckman House Rev. George Daman House Dewey House Wentworth and Diana Eldredge House Ezekiel Emerson Farm Farrar-Mansur House Joseph Fessenden House Reverend Dan Foster House Fowler-Steele House Gate of the Hills Daniel Gay House Glimmerstone Greenwood House Harrington House Hartness House Jeffrey House Wales N. Johnson House Juniper Hill Farm-Maxwell Evarts House Lockwood-Boynton House Luce Farm Maple Hill Farm Joseph and Daniel Marsh House McKenstry Manor Meeting House Farm Owen Moon Farm NAMCO Block Old Constitution House Aaron Jr. and Susan Parker Farm Zachariah Spaulding Farm Walter and Sylvia Stockmayer House Jedediah Strong II House David Sumner House John Wilder House

Object

Indian Stones

Sites

Structures

Footnotes

‡This historic property also has portions in an adjacent state.

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Description and history

See also

References