Building Description

Union Church

New Haven Mills, Vermont

The 1851 Union Church of New Haven Mills, Addison County, Vermont, is located at the center of a once thriving mill village. Positioned high on a grassy knoll at the crossroads of East Street and River Road, the Union Church overlooks the New Haven River and is adjacent to the historic Lampson School. The church remains a well-preserved example of Greek Revival style architecture built by local builder Eastman Case. The church is a rectangular, wood clapboard structure, with front-facing gable roof, and heavy classical details.

Distinctive features are the 20/20 windows, full entablature at the eaves and over the entry door, corner pilasters, gable pediment, and many interior details such as a pressed metal cornice and ceiling, wrought iron kerosene lamps, wood stoves, and classic moldings and details. The property is well preserved and retains its integrity of design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.

Exterior

The rectangular-massed Union Church is a one story, four bay deep, Greek Revival style structure with 20/20 double hung windows. Built in 1851, the post and beam structure with white clapboard siding and front gable pediment conveys a pure classical esthetic.

The square Doric corner pilasters provide a bold frame for each facade. The pediment has a tympanum of horizontal flush board siding and is closed by a full entablature with a raking cornice of similar detail rising to the center ridge.

Two brick chimneys, one on each side of the center gable ridge, located at the (north) rear roof line, were removed when the current asphalt shingle roof replaced the original slate tile roof.

A double door centered on the front facade is the single commanding element to this elevation. Two wood steps lead up to the entry door, which is capped with a full entablature and flanked by Doric pilasters similar to those on the building corners. Each entry door has four vertical wood panels. There are two identical fixed vertical panels over each door creating a heightened appearance to the entrance and facade. The foundation is constructed of cut slabs of marble, dolomite and limestone.

The symmetrical sides, (east and west) have four bays, each containing seven foot high, 20/20 double hung, wood sash windows. The simple wood trim surrounds provides focus and emphasis on the window. The top of each window meets the entablature at the eave. The windows are large and give the appearance of there being more window than wall. The wood louvered shutters have been removed to storage.

The (north) rear facade is a solid wall of clapboard siding. The returns of the open gable meet the tops of the corner pilasters and follow a raking cornice to the gable peak. The trim detail of the raking cornice repeats the front facade pediment.

The belfry, centered over the entrance door, extends above the front gable peak in plane with the front facade and consists of two tiers. First, a square block of horizontal flush board siding and plain corner Doric pilasters, serves as the base for the second tier open belfry. The second tier, stepped back from the square base, is a Queen Anne style belfry added in 1880. The upper belfry has two open, half-round wood arches per side with round wood cut-out details at the corners of each arch. A vertical wood panel perimeter rail, with three panels at the base of each arch matches the panels of the entrance doors. The green metal pyramid roof of the tower contains a decorative triangular wood dormer on each of the four planes. The insert of the triangular dormer is white painted vertical flush siding. There is a weather vane at the peak of the belfry roof.

Interior

The double wooden front doors lead into an entryway. A single window cut in half by the ceiling, illuminates the entry space on the east and west walls. The upper sash of both windows appears in the overhead crawl space, which provides access to the belfry. The interior wall, separating the entry from the sanctuary, has three six-panel wood doors. The two end doors open to aisles extending the length of the sanctuary to the chancel. The center door opens into an aisle space behind the last row of pews in the sanctuary.

Inside the sanctuary the full height of the space is accentuated by the three, seven foot tall windows on both side walls. Between the windows are mounted, cast iron kerosene lamps that still serve as the only source of artificial light. Two aisles extend the length of the church and divide ten rows of pews on either side. The arrangement of pews is specified in the original church charter to match those of the Congregational Church of Shoreham, Vermont, built in 1846. The pews' end panels and scrolled arm caps also match those of the Shoreham Congregational Church. The pews are painted white with the arm caps at the ends of the pews painted brown. Also painted brown is the trim cap of the pew back, along with the top trim board of the wainscot surrounding the perimeter of the sanctuary interior.

A coffered pressed metal ceiling and cornice added in the late 19th century extends throughout the sanctuary and entryway. A brown painted cornice of bows and swags serves as the border to a ceiling of square panels painted white. A large square panel, centered in the sanctuary ceiling once served as the frame for a kerosene chandelier no longer present. Random plank wood flooring is painted brown and extends throughout the church.

In the east and west rear corners of the sanctuary are two wood burning stoves. Overhead stove pipes follow each aisle the full length of the sanctuary and exit the north wall over the chancel.

One stove manufacturer is Wagner, Richmond & Smith of Troy, New York, dated 1852, and the second stove is from Champion Pennisular Stove Company of Detroit, Chicago and Buffalo, dated 1886. At the north end of the sanctuary is the chancel, which is raised two steps above the main floor. Cane chairs and a Victorian settee occupy the chancel along with an upright piano and a parlor organ. The organ was manufactured by Carpenter Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vermont, and the piano was manufactured by Baus Piano of New York. Centered on the wall over the chancel is an old black and white print of the Virgin Mary. To the west of the chancel, mounted on the wall, is a night and one day brass clock with wood casing by Chauncey Jerome of New Haven, Connecticut.

Four choir pews to the west side of the chancel are arranged perpendicular to the main pews of the sanctuary. A symmetrical set of pews on the east side no longer exist, but appear on the original church plan by Eastman Case. The raised platform of the chancel extends over this space and is now the area occupied by the organ and piano. Interior walls throughout the church are original plaster and painted green. There are voids where the plaster has failed, exposing the subsurface accordion lathe. This failure was due to the settling of the foundation, a problem which has since been repaired.

The site is a triangular wedge of land that at one time was bordered by roads on all sides. Currently the south and west boundaries are River Road and East Street respectively. A dirt swale along the east perimeter of the property indicates the path of an old road that once led to a covered bridge crossing the New Haven River to Munger Street. The Union Church serves as the focal point for the village of New Haven Mills and is one of the few remaining buildings of a flourishing mill community.