Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse

The Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse is a late Georgian style building of timber frame construction. The meeting house, which was constructed in 1769, is a two and a half story structure of rectangular plan with a gable roof. The building is five bays wide by four bays deep and has dimensions of 40' x 35'. To the east of the meetinghouse is a small burying ground, separated from the meetinghouse by an iron fence. The building and its burying ground occupy an open, grassy site of approx- mately two acres.

Located approximately 14 miles north of the current town center of Millville, a small suburban/industrial town on the Blackstone River, the Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse and burying ground are set amidst an area of dispersed late 20th century residences, vacant agricultural land and woodlands of recent growth. and sood ando of seci Bri 0 EXTERIOR FEATURES The roof of the meetinghouse is of moderate slope and sheathed with white cedar shingles, applied in 1966. A small brick chimney, built in the 1860's for a wood stove, rises from the ridge at the east end of the structure. Butted wood clapboards, painted white, cover the walls of the meetinghouse, which are enframed with plain cornerboards, watertable and a simple cornice. The foundations are of drylaid, uncoursed granite and fieldstone.

There is no cellar or crawlspace. The principal elevation is the south facade, which contains nine double hung 12/12 sash arranged symmetrically around a central entrance. The frontispiece consists of double leaved doors (panelled, mid 19th century replacements) set within a plain case ornamented with applied moldings rising to a central keystone block. Fluted pilasters with rusticated bases and bearing rosettes in the freize flank the entrance and support a deep triangular pediment.

/Architect unknown Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse is an intact late Georgian style rural meetinghouse dating from 1769. It is significant for its excellent state of preservation and as a rare surviving example of the early New England meetinghouse type which is char- acterized by a central entrance on the long wall, directly opposite the centrally located pulpit. Historically, it is significant as the religious center from 1769 to 1%0 to 1830 of the South Parish of Mendon, Millville's parent town. It is additionally significant as an object of early preservation advocacy (1896). The meetinghouse site also contains the parish's ariginal burying ground, used for burials continuously since 1773.

The Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse and burying ground possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feelings and association and meet criteria A and C of the National Register on the state level. Architecturally, the meetinghouse is one of approximately three dozen 18th century meeting- nouses of its type surviving in the state of Massachusetts and a very rare example of an 18th century rural meetinghouse retaining the majority of its fabric intact and unrestored. The only other example in Massachusetts of comparable integrity of materials, etc. is the Rocky Hill Meetinghouse (1785, NR 1972) in Amesbury, which postdates the Chestnut Hill meetinghouse by 16 years.

Other similar meetinghouses in New England include the Sandown (New Hampshire) meetinghouse (1773), the Rockingham (Vermont) meetinghouse (1787) and Saint Paul's, Wickford, Rhode Island (1707). In design, the meetinghouse is a typical example of the Protestant meetinghouse form which dominated New England ecclesiastical architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse is characteristic of this type, with a rectangular form, gable roof and semi-domestic appearance.