The Old Indian Meeting House (also known as the Old Indian Church) 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 410 Meetinghouse Road in

Mashpee, Massachusetts Mashpee ( wam, Mâseepee) is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, on Cape Cod. The population was 15,060 as of 2020. The town is the site of the headquarters and most members of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, one of two feder ...

. Built in 1758, the meetinghouse is the oldest Native American church in the eastern United States and the oldest church on

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

. 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 1998.

Description

The Old Indian Meeting House stands on the east side of Meetinghouse Road, north of its junction with Falmouth Street. It is located at the western end of a cemetery which extends between the two roads, on of land that extend to the junction. It is a 1-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. It has a Greek Revival exterior, with corner pilasters rising to entablatures that run along the roofline on the sides. There are two symmetrically placed entrances on the front facade, each framed by pilasters and a corniced entablature. A triangular transom window is set in the gable above, and there are fixed-pane windows above the entrances.

History

The first church to be built in Mashpee was built in 1670. In 1684, a second meeting house was built on the site of the first by Deacon John Hinckley. That building was moved about 1717 to another site in Mashpee. In 1758, a meeting house is described as being at the present site; it is unclear whether this was an altered version of the 1684 building, moved to this site and enlarged, or whether it was a new construction. It was used by the

Wampanoag The Wampanoag , also rendered Wôpanâak, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island,Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 17 ...

Native Americans as a Christian church. In 1717 the church was moved from its original location in the town to its current one, and the building was remodeled.Massachusetts:A Guide to Its Places and People, Federal Writers Project,(U.S. History Publishers) pg. 594
The building also served as a school. In the late eighteenth century, a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

("burial ground") was founded on the church grounds. With almost four centuries of Native American leadership and ministry, the Old Meeting House is a place of historic and spiritual significance to the Mashpee

tribe. In 1833 it was the site of the famous Mashpee Revolt, when tribal members and their minister,

William Apess image:Williamapes.jpg, 300px, Autobiography of William Apess William Apess (1798–1839, Pequot people, Pequot) (also known as William Apes before 1837), was an ordained Methodist minister, writer, and activist of mixed-race descent, who was a polit ...

(

Pequot The Pequot () are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut including the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, or th ...

), protested state intrusions on their self-governance, and white settlers' theft of wood from tribal lands. The site was re-dedicated in 1923 under the leadership of Nelson D. Simons, and the site was added to the

in 1998. In 2009, the Mashpee tribe celebrated its reconstruction and formal re-opening. Old Indian Meetinghouse

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts 1684 establishments in Massachusetts 17th-century churches in the United States Religious buildings and structures completed in 1684 Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Churches in Barnstable County, Massachusetts Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Colonial architecture in Massachusetts Greek Revival church buildings in Massachusetts Italianate architecture in Massachusetts Mashpee, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Barnstable County, Massachusetts

Description

History

See also

References