First Congregational Church of Blandford

The First Congregational Church of Blandford is located on North Street, at the top of a hill which overlooks the center of Blandford, Massachusetts, a rural, upland community on the western side of the Connecticut River Valley. The First Congregational Church is a two-story, rectangular structure, five bays wide by five bays long. A three-bay pedimented porch is centered on the main facade. The front-gabled roof is surmounted by a three-stage steeple Tocated close to the front of the building. The church was built in 1822, and renovated in 1866, although it was not substantially altered at that time.

The Blandford Congregational Church sits on a 1.2-acre polygonally-shaped The church is located in the northwestern corner of the lot, close to North Street, with its primary facade facing south toward the town There are no outbuildings associated with the church, and the remainder of the lot is either blacktopped (close to the church on the east and west sides) or open field. To the north of the site is a residence with a square plan and a hip roof, probably built or remodelled during the early 1900s. To the east is Watson Park, a town-owned park that is predominantly_open fields. A stone wall divides the church parcel from Watson Park. To the south of the parcel is also town-owned 1and, which was once the site of a late nineteenth-century brick school that was demolished in 1981.

The site is now an open field. Across the street from the Blandford Congregational Church is the town common, a grassy, open area where the first meetinghouse (begun ca. 1740, completed ca. 1805, probably demolished ca. 1822) was located. Just to the north of the common is the old burial ground.

(in one paragraph) The First Congregational Church in Blandford possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. The First Congregational Church is a well-preserved Federal-style New England meeting- house. Constructed ca. 1822, it is a distinctive example of the work of Isaac Damon, a prominent Federal-period architect/builder who worked primarily in the Connecticut River Valley. Damon is one of the very few early Massachusetts builder/architects of whom much is known, and his influence on the field of architecture as a profession was major. The church is also state and local level. Upland settlement in the Connecticut River Valley was spurred by numerous land grants made in the 1730s.

The Town of Blandford was originally granted in 1735 to individuals who had formerly held common and undivided house lots in Sheffield, Massachusetts. The six-mile-square private grant was surveyed and divided into lots the next year. Early settlement was primarily by Scots- Irish Presbyterians immigrating from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, who provided the inspiration for the plantation's name of New Glasgow. New Glasgow was incorporated as a town in 1741, and renamed Blandford after the ship that had carried newly-appointed Governor Shirley to Massachusetts. Running through Blandford was the primary native American trail across the Berkshire highlands to the Housatonic Valley. Use of this trail continued by Plantation and Colonial Period settlers.

With the establishment of the town of Blandford, this route, known as the Great Road to Housatonic, was upgraded and called the 0ld Post Road. (The route still remains as Massachusetts Route 23, also called the Otis Stage Road and the Blandford Turnpike). Blandford Center was established on the Great Road in the eastern half of the town. The local transportation routes developed as radial highways from the center along town division lines.