Photographing old and sometimes forgotten churches
This northern area of Vermont (Lamoille County) through the Green Mountains is fairly sparsely populated. Belvidere is a town of about 300 with nearby covered bridges and at least one church. Although the building looks old and may have a long history, I can only tell you that the sign over the door says it’s a United Christian Society Church.
Now known as St. Jacob of Alaska Orthodox Church, it’s located in Northfield Falls, Vermont. The new owners have been there since the 1990s, but the church would probably date closer to the age of the cemetery behind the building which has graves before the Civil War period.
Monroe, New Hampshire has a pair of Methodist churches. This one (North Monroe) is outside of the town and it looks like it may only be used during the summer months. It just happened to be on the road I was using to get to Vermont. There is also an interesting looking old cemetery next to the church with graves back to the early 1800s.
Sanborton, Vermont’s Congregational Church was formed in 1771 and this Federal style building shown is the second church built, replacing the original in 1834. The church is one of many buildings included on the National Register’s listing for the town and a brief history of this church is online here.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is in Royalton, Vermont and was built in 1836. It’s classified as Gothic Revival in the National Register. It’s fairly simple in design compared to many of the older Vermont churches and it was originally painted brown. The church’s congregation was generally small over the years and by the early 1970s, regular services were no longer being held. After limping along for another two decades, the church was deconsecrated in 1996. It’s maintained now by the Royalton Historical Society and used for community functions and weddings.
Union Christian Church is part of the President Calvin Coolidge Historic Site in Plymouth, Vermont. The Village of Plymouth Notch has a few homes, this church, a schoolhouse, general store and cheese factory and is said to look basically unchanged since the early 19th century when Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th U.S. President.
The Greek Revivial church was built in 1840 and was initially a Congregational Church. Nearby is Plymouth Cemetery, which includes the graves of several generations of the Coolidge family, including the grave of the former president.
These are a few churches I happened to passed by in Vermont that I stopped to take an unplanned photo or two. But for most of them there was limited information online on the history, so I’m putting them all in one post.
Originally a Methodist Church, Waterbury Church is in Waterbury Center, Vermont not far from Stowe. The Federal style church was built in 1833 and is listed on the National Register.
Tinmouth is in a rural part of Vermont and the historic district is included on the National Register. I stopped to take a photo of what I thought was an older church, but learned from a local that it was built in 1969 to replace the town’s church from 1836 that burned down.
This brick Baptist Church in West Brattleboro, Vermont was built in 1834.
I took a wrong side street while driving through Montpelier, Vermont and saw this little church at the end of a neighborhood. It’s called Resurrection Baptist, and it appears to be slightly less than 50 years old, but I took a quick photo anyway.
Now an arts center in Sharon, Vermont, this building was a church in nearby Norwich and was moved to the current spot in 1910.
