The Fremont Meeting House (also known as Poplin Meeting House) is a historic

meeting house A meeting house (meetinghouse, meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a * church, which is a body of people who believe in Chr ...

at 464 Main Street ( New Hampshire Route 107) in Fremont, New Hampshire. Built in 1800, it is a well-preserved example of a Federal-period meeting house, and is the only surviving example in the state with two porches, a once-common variant of the building type. 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 1993.

Description and history

The Fremont Meeting House is located near the southern end of the dispersed rural center of Fremont, on the northeast side of NH 107 a short way south of the Ellis School. It is a large two-story wooden structure, measuring by , with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. It has a plain five-bay main facade, its only ornamentation in the centered entrance surround, which has paneled pilasters and a corniced entablature. The short gable ends of the building are extended by staircase enclosures, which provide access to the second-floor gallery space. The interior retains some of its original box pews, and its pulpit, portions of which retain original marbleized paint finish. Other surviving interior elements include some rare period music supports in the gallery. The property also includes a 19th-century hearse house. The town of Fremont was incorporated as Poplin in 1764, out of Brentwood. It is unusual among area towns that it did not build a meeting house soon afterward, and early congregationalists continued to worship in surrounding towns. This meeting house was built in 1800, and is one of the last in the region to be built in the old style, with the main entrance on the long side and without a steeple. Its construction also exhibits the use of the

queenpost truss A queen post is a tension member in a truss that can span longer openings than a king post truss. A king post uses one central supporting post, whereas the queen post truss uses two. Even though it is a tension member, rather than a compression me ...

in the roof, a technique that did not become common until the 19th century. The building served as a town meeting space until a new town hall was built in 1911.

References

{{NRHP in Rockingham County, New Hampshire Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire Federal architecture in New Hampshire Churches completed in 1800 Churches in Rockingham County, New Hampshire National Register of Historic Places in Rockingham County, New Hampshire Fremont, New Hampshire

Description and history

See also

References