LB2007.1.70059

LB2007.1.70059

"Church, So. Reading", No. 32 The Old Stone Church, South Reading, Vermont: Behind the King family homestead and across the yard, lies another legacy of a tiny village of long ago, the Old Stone Church. Its physical body is formed from a straightforward rectangle, 44 by 54 feet, faced in slabs of grey stone. The long sides are cut by unadorned windows that run from the structure's darker stone base up 15 feet or so, nearly to the roofline. A white clapboard belfry and shingled spire perch overhead. The front, has a terraced stoop, tidy windows, and modest wreath-hung doors. The little hamlet where the church rests is hidden among the farms and hills and forests south of Woodstock. Reading, comprised together of the little towns of Felchville, Hammondsville, South Reading, and the nearly 27,000 acres surrounding them, was incorporated in 1761. The earliest settlers came to the South Reading part some twenty years later. By the mid-19th century the community had a sprinkling of farms, a starch factory, a map printing business, a tannery, a blacksmith, and a couple of mercantile stores and nearby mills. The place of worship now called The Old Stone Church was erected in 1844 as a non-denominational gathering place for people of all faiths. Thirty-three subscribers to the South Reading Meeting House Association anted $1255, some in cash and some in materials or labor, to fund its construction. The contributions reflected a community spirit. While long-time resident Ebenezer Robinson was the single largest contributor and together he and his three sons fronted a third of the cost, the church was built mostly with the $10 or $20 or $30 that came from the other families of the town. Two South Reading businessmen, Rufus Buck and Lewis Robinson (son of Ebenezer), deeded over the necessary land. Another local, Washington Keyes, developed the plans for the church. He wasn't an architect or engineer, but, according to late historian Gilbert Davis, he was an "energetic and prosperous farmer" in his early forties, raised in South Reading, a sometime legislator, and son-in-law of the elder Robinson. While the physical form of Keyes' design projects an image of functional simplicity, the stone walls of the church, are, in fact, complex and unusual. They were formed using a technique called snecked ashlar, with the 'ashlar' referring to the slabs of hewn stone visible on the walls' exterior, and 'snecked' describing the method for setting them. Three and four foot expanses of roughly trimmed slabs were placed vertically on edge and then stabilized with smaller flats set horizontally between them, probably through to another ashlar or field stone interior wall. Use of this masonry technique in Vermont was reportedly limited almost exclusively to southern Windsor County, in the mid-19th century, perhaps because of the availability of narrow ledges of gneiss and mica schist in the area. Some sources suggest that the stones in the South Reading church were set by local masons, others propose that the work was done by itinerant Canadians or immigrants from Scotland, where the technique originated. In any case, construction of the Old Stone Church was completed in under a year. The Meeting House Association then sold its pews at auction and annually meted out Sunday occupancy to various denominations in proportion to their ownership. In early years, all denominations apparently co-existed without incident. In 1894, however, the Methodists aspired to seize control. Through the efforts of their newly minted pastor, Moses B. Parounagain, an amiable and articulate native of Armenia, they succeeded. The Old Stone Church has been affiliated with the Methodists since then. For over 140 years, the daily peal of the church's bell filled the surrounding fields and farms. One seasonal resident particularly loved the regular music of the bell. After Old Stone Church benefactor Ethel Roosevelt Derby, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, passed away in 1977 a plaque in her honor was mounted on the church's rear interior wall. "May this bell ring 'as long as winds blow and waters flow,'" it says, perhaps referencing the verse of Psalm 145 that commemorates the ease with which God commands the natural world. The bell was the gift, in 1846, of Ebenezer Robinson, a man who was, according to his grandson George, "one of the most remarkable of the early settlers of Reading." Robinson was born in 1765 in Lexington, Massachusetts. At the still-green age of 16 he joined the Continental forces. He sailed on the Bellasaurias, which, after three months at sea, was captured by a British fleet. "Our sufferings while confined in the old hull of a ship were unaccountably severe," Robinson told his grandson, "many of our number perished on account of the stench, and the damp, deathly atmosphere." But Robinson survived and months later, was released off the coast of Rhode Island in a prisoner exchange. From there, he walked back to Massachusetts through snow and ice, dependent on the food and shelter he could beg enroute. The following spring he returned to the army for another two years. Then in 1788 he and his older brother James resettled in what is now South Reading, where he cleared a farm from the wilderness, an endeavor filled with "remarkable vicissitudes and hardships." Despite these difficulties, Robinson reached the end of his long life a contented man, never wishing to "change his lot for that of any other, nor his home for that which any other country or clime could afford." The pews inside the Old Stone Church today are the same ones from which Ebenezer Robinson and his family listened to Sunday sermons in 1845 and beyond. All of the interior has changed very little; the sparsely decorated sanctuary opens up through two stories, save for the space occupied by a little balcony in the rear, and light streams in from the large side windows. Two soapstone wood-fired stoves provide the only heat, Their exhaust pipes run nearly the length of the building to spread the warmth. As in the old days, the stoves must be stoked up a day or two in advance of cold weekends to make the building habitable for services. The congregation was robust in the 1950s and 1960s, remembers Springfield resident Tim Austin, who grew up next door to the church. "The local townspeople were closely knit during that time," he says, "a lot of people went to church on a regular basis." There were pageants and other events, and a vacation Bible school in the summer. Christmas and Easter services were particularly packed. Today the Old Stone Church's membership has dwindled to a handful or two of committed congregants.