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Fourth Meeting House (1729-1824)

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Nathaniel Hitchcock (1812-1900) made this sketch from memory of the Fourth Meeting House in Deerfield, Massachusetts, when he was eighteen years old. The meeting house was built in 1729 and served both civic and religious purposes. The town remodeled the building in 1768. A newly gilded weathervane in the form of a rooster topped the steeple at the north end with a bell tower and clock. This replaced the old center spire. The town also painted the building a dark stone color with white window frames and dark brown doors. New architectural features included a double door with a scrolled pediment and pedimented window caps on the first floor, imitating examples set by numerous domestic structures in Deerfield and other towns in the Connecticut River Valley in this time period. Meetinghouses, usually the largest buildings in town, often occupied the highest point of land to insure visibility from a distance and to act as a landmark for travelers.

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