Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1891-02-19
YE MEETING HOUSE.
AN oLD-TIME NEW ENGLAND
INSTITUTION.


Why the Early Houses of Worship
Were Generally Set on Hill-Tops-
The Burning Question of Assign
ing Seats.
"The New England Meeting House, is
the subject of an article in the Atlantic
Monthly, by Alice Morse Earle The
first New England meeting houses are
thus described:
The first meeting houses were often
built in the valleys, in the meadow
lands; for the dwelling houses must be
clustered around them, since the colo
nists were ordered by law to build their
new homes within half mile of the
| meeting house. Soon, however, the
houses became too closely crowded for
the most convenient uses of farming
community; pasturage for the cattle had
to be obtained at too great a distance
| from the farmhouse; tirewood had to be
| brought from too distant woods; near
ness to water also had to be considered.
Thus the law became dead letter, and
each new-com;n ng settler built on outly-
ing and remote land, since the Indians
were no longer so deeply to be dreaded.
Then the meeting houses, having usually
to accommodate whole township of
scattered farms, were placed ON remote
and often highly elevated locations;
sometimes at the very top of long,
steep hill-so long and so steep in some
cases, especially in one Connecticut par
ish, that church attendants could not
ride down ON horseback from the pima
cled meeting house, but were forced to
| hla dnup laaliner thair hnreao nd
mount from horse block at the foot of
the hill. The second Roxbury church
was set on high hill, and the story is
fairly pathetic of the aged and feeble
John Eliot, the glory Of New England
Puritanism, that once, as he toiled pa
tiently up the long ascent to his dearly
loved meeting, he said to the person on
whose supporting arm he leaned Gn
the Puritan fashion of teaching lesson
from any event and surrounding)
'"This is very like the way to heaven {;
tits uphill. The Lord by His grace fetch
us up"
The location on hilltop was chosen
and favored for various reasons. The
meeting house was at first watch-h house,
from which to keep vigilant lookout for
any possible approach of hostile or
sneaking Indians; it was also land
mark, whose high bell-turret, or steeple,
though pointing to heaven, was likewise
q guide on earth, for, thus stationed on
q high elevation, it could be seen for
miles around by travellers journeying
through the woods, or in the narrow,
tree obscured bride paths which were
then almost the only roads. In seaside
towns, it could be mark for sailors at
sea; such was the Truro meeting house.
Then, too, our Puritan ancestors dearly
loved "sightly location" and were
willing to climb uphill cheerfully, even
through bleak New Englend winters,
for the sake of having a meeting house
which showed off well, and was proper
source of envy to the neighboring viii
lagos and the country around. The stu
diously remote and painfully inaccessible
locations chosen for the site of many
| fine roomy churches must astonish any
observing traveller on the byroads of
New England. Too often, alas these
churches are deserted, falling down, un.
o opened from year to year, destitute alike
r of minister and congregation. Some
{ times, too, on high hilltops, or on lone
some roads leading through tall second
: growth of woods, deserted and neg
' lected old graveyards-the most
. lonely and forlorn of all sad
places-by their broken and fallen
headstones, which surround half
filled-in and uncovered cellar, show that
once meeting house for New England
Christians had stood there. Tall grass
and tangle of blackberry brambles
cover the forgotten graves, and perhaps
spirc of orange tiger-liies a shrub of
southernwood or of winter killed and
! dying box, may struggle feebly for life
under the shadow of the ''plumed ranks
of tall wild cherry" and prove that once
; these lonely graves were cared for and
loved for the sake of those who lie buried
in this now waste spot. No traces re-
main of the old meeting house save the
cellar and the narrow stone steps, sadly
leading nowhere, which once were
pressed by the feet of the children of the
Pilgrims, but now are trodden only by
the curious and infrequent passer-by, or
the epitaph- seeking antiquary.
In all the Puritan meetings, as then
and now in Quaker meetings, the men
sat on one side of the meeting house and
the women on the other; and they en-
tered by separate doors. 1t was great
and much-contested change when men
and women were ordered to sit together
"promiscuoslie" In front, on either
side of the pulpit (or very rarely in the
foremost row in the gallery, was seat
of highest dignity, known as the "fore-
seat, " in which only the persons of great
est importance in the community sat
Sometimes a row of square pews were
built on three sides of the ground floor,