The First Parish Congregational Church is a historic church at 116 Main Street in
Yarmouth, Maine
Yarmouth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, twelve miles north of the state's largest city, Portland. When originally settled in 1636, as North Yarmouth, it was part of Massachusetts, and remained as such for 213 years. In 1849, ...
. The congregation was established in 1730, as the ninth church founded in what is now Maine. The current
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
meeting house was constructed in 1867–68, and is an important surviving design of Portland architect
George M. Harding
George Milford Harding (1827–1910) was an American architect who practiced in nineteenth-century Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Life and career
Harding was born in 1827 in Chatham, Massachusetts. At the age of 17 he began his st ...
. The building 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 1995.
[ The present congregation is affiliated with the ]United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...
.
Description and history
Yarmouth's First Parish Congregational Church is located to the east of the town center, on the south side of Main Street ( Maine State Route 115). It is a tall single-story wood-frame structure, with a gabled roof, an exterior sheathed in clapboard and flushboarded siding, and a granite foundation. A square tower projects slightly from the front, with a gabled entry vestibule projecting further in front of it. The entry consists of a pair of doorways, each flanked by thin composite columns and set in round-arch openings. A larger three-part round-arch window stands above them, with a banded frieze along the raking gable edge of the vestibule. The tower has four stages, and is elaborately decorated, with an open belfry and an octagonal spire.[
The First Parish congregation was established in 1730, and first met in a meetinghouse, known as the Meetinghouse under the Ledge, about south of this location. In 1818, they moved to a new building, known as the Old Sloop, across the street from its current location. That building was turned into a public hall after the congregation moved out in 1868, and was demolished in 1879.][''Images of America: Yarmouth'', Alan M. Hall (Arcadia, 2002), p.19]
The church was designed for the congregation by Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
architect George M. Harding
George Milford Harding (1827–1910) was an American architect who practiced in nineteenth-century Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Life and career
Harding was born in 1827 in Chatham, Massachusetts. At the age of 17 he began his st ...
, one of Maine's leading architects of the mid-19th century. It is one of only three church designs of his to survive in the state.[
File:Old Sloop, Yarmouth, Maine.jpg, The Old Sloop in the first half of the 19th century
File:First Parish Yarmouth Maine.jpg, A view of the northern (front) and eastern facades of the church
]
See also
*
References
External links
Official website
{{National Register of Historic Places
Churches in Yarmouth, Maine
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Italianate architecture in Maine
Churches completed in 1867
19th-century churches in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Maine
Italianate church buildings in the United States