The Beaver Meadow Union Chapel, now also known as the West Norwich Union Church, is a historic church on the north side of Beaver Meadow Road in

Norwich, Vermont Norwich is a town in Windsor County, in the U.S. state of Vermont. The population was 3,612 at the 2020 census. Home to some of the state of Vermont's wealthiest residents, the municipality is a commuter town for nearby Hanover, New Hampshir ...

. Built in 1915, it is a well-preserved example of vernacular ecclesiastical architecture of the period. It is of national significance as the origin point of the Home Prayers program, essentially a mail-order ministry inspired by the catalogs of

Sears, Roebuck Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1995.

Description and history

The Beaver Meadow Union Chapel stands on the north side of Beaver Meadow Road, just west of the crossroads village of West Norwich. It is a simple single-story wood-frame structure, with a steeply pitched gable roof, clapboard siding, and stone foundation. A square tower rises from the roof near the front, with an open belfry capped by a pyramidal roof. The main facade has an unadorned entrance at the center, with simply framed sash windows on either side, and above in the belfry. A kitchen ell extends to the left of the main building. The interior retains many of its original finishes and furnishings. The church was built in 1915 at the instigation of Margaret Kerr. She was a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

schoolteacher who agitated for its construction after a drunken brawl occurred in front of her home. The site on which it was built originally had a Methodist church on it; it had been moved to

Sharon Sharon ( he, שָׁרוֹן ''Šārôn'' "plain") is a given name as well as an Israeli surname. In English-speaking areas, Sharon is now predominantly a feminine given name. However, historically it was also used as a masculine given name. In I ...

. The church was built by its future congregants, and was served by ministers operating from nearby

Hanover, New Hampshire Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of Eng ...

, mainly during the warmer months. One of them, Rev. Allen W. Clark, seized upon the idea of mailing written elements of a service (including lessons and sermon) to congregants in periods when the church was not in service. This idea grew into the Home Prayers program, which had more than 23,000 subscribers from 850 churches when Clark retired in 1977.

References

{{NRHP in Windsor County, Vermont Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont Churches completed in 1915 20th-century churches in the United States Buildings and structures in Norwich, Vermont Churches in Windsor County, Vermont National Register of Historic Places in Windsor County, Vermont

Description and history

See also

References