Historian Thomas L. Lentz

Information Uncovered About Historic Meetinghouse

By Thomas L. Lentz, Municipal Historian

The society house, rebuilt from the first meetinghouse, stands behind the church. 1882

    This article describes what may have happened to the first meetinghouse or church building in Killingworth completed in 1743, based on some startling new information and discoveries that reveal that a portion of the meetinghouse may still stand. In the early 1700s, because of the difficulty the northern residents of town experienced in traveling south for church and town meetings, they decided there was a need to form their own parish or Second Ecclesiastical Society. They petitioned the General Assembly which passed an Act of Organization on May 9, 1735 granting permission for the formation of a new society. The act stated where the division line would be and made the northern part of town a separate ecclesiastical society. This line would later be the boundary between Clinton and Killingworth. The ecclesiastical society held responsibility within its boundaries for religious affairs, schools, and the burying grounds.

   At its first meeting in 1735, the new society voted to build a meetinghouse, but the building built in 1736, became a society house, or town hall, instead. In 1739, it was voted again to build a meetinghouse and this building was completed in 1743. The building was 38 feet wide and 58 feet long. It faced south and was said to resemble a large barn full of windows. The site of the society house and meetinghouse is on the west side of Route 81 a little south of the traffic circle and the old Center School, now the Resident State Trooper’s office. The meetinghouse served the town for nearly 80 years and the last service was held on May 28, 1820.

   In 1821, the Second Ecclesiastical Society voted to sell the old meetinghouse to anyone who would build a new society house for meetings of the town and society. In 1822, Levi Hull donated land behind the new meetinghouse (present church building) for the new society house. At the same time, the society sold the old meetinghouse and surrounding land to Levi Hull. There is nothing further in the official records about the old meetinghouse or the society house, except that a society house existed.

   It has been assumed that the old meetinghouse was in ruins and was probably torn down. However, a note found in the archives of the Killingworth Historical Society reveals the fate of the meetinghouse. The note was written by Cyrus

Beams in barn in Clinton that may have come from the first meetinghouse.

D. Evarts who became a church member in 1884 and was active for many years afterwards including serving as Church Clerk. According to Evarts, the first meetinghouse was dismantled and rebuilt behind the church. This is possible, because in early times, it was usual that when a structure was taken down, to reuse as much of it as possible in building a new structure. An 1882 photograph of the society house, now called the town house at that time, shows it was a substantial building of two stories with windows and a chimney. It probably closely resembled the meetinghouse except for the addition of a chimney. Evarts goes on to say that the society house stood for a few years after the Agricultural Hall (now Old Town Hall) was built in 1881. It was then sold to the Buell family and moved to Clinton and used as a barn. Evarts says it stood on the west side of High Street about a third of a mile north of the railroad tracks.

A two story barn-like structure with windows still stands on the west side of High Street in Clinton north of the railroad tracks. In the late nineteenth century, the property was owned by Frank T. Buell. The building superficially resembles the society house. It is 28 feet wide and 38 feet long, smaller than the first meetinghouse. The frame of the building is made of beams of different ages and apparently from different sources. Most of the larger structural ones, however, are eighteenth century, hand-hewn chestnut beams. The dimensions of some are 8 ½ by 9 ½ inches. It is possible, therefore, that if this structure is the barn that was rebuilt from the second society house, as seems likely, that these beams were originally part of the first meetinghouse completed in 1743.