ROCKINGHAM, Vt. – The Rockingham Meeting House will open for the 2021 season Saturday, May 29. Visitors are welcome daily through Indigenous People’s Day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Constructed between 1787 and 1801, the meetinghouse is a designated National Historic Landmark and the oldest public building in Vermont that still exists in a condition close to its original state. It served as both a place of worship and the town hall until 1869 and was then abandoned for several decades. In 1906 the building was restored to its current state – one of the earliest historic preservation projects in Vermont – leaving intact its king-post timber framing, finely detailed woodwork and its “pig pen” box pews. The building hosts an annual pilgrimage in August as part of the town’s “Old Home Days” celebrations.
The meetinghouse is owned by the town of Rockingham and operated as a museum, with skilled docents on hand to offer additional information about the architecture and history of the building. The adjacent cemetery, which continues in use today, contains more than 1,000 graves, and is a treasure trove of information about the lives and deaths of the town’s early settlers as well as some of the finest gravestone art to be found in New England.
The meetinghouse is located just north of the village of Bellows Falls and Exit 6 of Interstate 91, just off Vermont Route 103.
For more information, contact Rockingham Historic Preservation Commission at clg@rockbf.org.