The Danville Meetinghouse (also known as The Hawke Meetinghouse) is a historic

colonial meeting house A colonial meeting house was a meeting house used by communities in colonial New England. Built using tax money, the colonial meeting house was the focal point of the community where the town's residents could discuss local issues, conduct reli ...

on North Main Street (

New Hampshire Route 111A New Hampshire Route 111 (abbreviated NH 111) is a east–west highway in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties in southeastern New Hampshire. The road runs from the Massachusetts border at Hollis to North Hampton on the Atlantic shore. The we ...

) in

Danville, New Hampshire Danville is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 4,408 at the 2020 census. Danville is part of the Timberlane Regional School District, with students attending Danville Elementary School, Timberlane Regio ...

. Construction on the building began in 1755 and was finished in 1760 when Danville (Hawke at the time) petitioned to form a town of its own, separate from Kingston. It is the oldest meetinghouse of original construction and least-altered in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, with a remarkably well preserved interior. The building, now maintained by a local nonprofit organization, was added to 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 1982.

Description and history

The Danville Meetinghouse is located in a rural setting in northern Danville, on the east side of North Main Street. It is a -story wood-frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. Entrances are located at the centers of the east, west, and south sides, with the principal entrance on the south. It is framed by pilasters and a simple entablature. The north wall has five bays, with the central one occupied by a pulpit window halfway between the two levels. The interior retains original

box pew A box pew is a type of church pew that is encased in panelling and was prevalent in England and other Protestant countries from the 16th to early 19th centuries. History in England Before the rise of Protestantism, seating was not customary in chu ...

s, with a raised pulpit and reading desk at the center of the north wall. The gallery level has slip pews, and a choir area on the south wall facing the pulpit. The meeting house was built c. 1759-60 by local residents for what was then the west parish of Kingston, before it was separately incorporated, first as Hawke, then as Danville. Many of its windows were enlarged slightly c. 1800, and the building also received some Federal style exterior decoration. Its use for religious services declined with the construction of a church in 1832, and town meetings were held here regularly until 1887, when the present town hall was completed. Its box pews were removed in the 1860s and placed in storage; they were returned to their original places in 1936. The building is of significant regional architectural importance, for its age and state of preservation. Its well-preserved interior provides a major view into the architecture of older (no longer extant) meeting houses, which it is documented to resemble.

References

{{NRHP in Rockingham County, New Hampshire Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire Religious buildings and structures completed in 1759 Churches in Rockingham County, New Hampshire National Register of Historic Places in Rockingham County, New Hampshire Danville, New Hampshire

Description and history

See also

References