White boards and brick facades, tall bell towers and hundreds of years of history.
The Jaffrey Historical Society is presenting two new exhibits at the Jaffrey Civic Center around the New England tradition of the meetinghouse – both those from around New England and Jaffrey’s own historic building.
“Some Meetinghouses & Historic Churches of New England” is a photo collection, with pictures mostly taken by Jaffrey’s Rob Stephenson. Stephenson has a close connection to Jaffrey’s own meetinghouse, having been on the Meetinghouse Committee and in charge of most of the repairs to the building for the past 30 years, but he said his interest in these buildings predates that.
“I notice buildings. I like old and new buildings. I’m attuned to that,” said Stephenson, who spent his career in urban design and architecture.
Stephenson said the project started as a collection of photographs he took as he was driving around. Whenever a church or meetinghouse would catch his eye, he’d stop and take a photograph. He said it wasn’t a coordinated effort at the time, but he eventually had enough material that he approached the Jaffrey Historical Society in the early 1990s about doing a presentation on meetinghouses, steeples and tower clocks. He said it was after that that he became involved in Jaffrey’s Meetinghouse maintenance.
Photographing churches and meetinghouses continued to be a hobby for Stephenson.
Last year, he gave a presentation of a collection of his photos at RiverMead in Peterborough, and said he has since added to the collection, including his first planned trip specifically to gather photographs, making a route around Rhode Island to add that state to his collection.
Stephenson said he has been doing it so long he started the hobby using a film camera, then digital, and now mostly uses his iPhone. He said these buildings were – and often still are – important parts of village life.
Stephenson said that, of course, the Jaffrey Meetinghouse remains his favorite, but that many buildings around New England have their own fascinating histories and connections. Those driving by the First Church in Templeton, Mass., for example, might find the building familiar, as it influenced a church in Fitzwilliam, then Dublin and then Hancock, and kept traveling north, as far as Newport, which has a brick version.
If someone was interested in what the Jaffrey Meetinghouse looked like when it was still an active church, he or she might visit the meetinghouse in Rockingham, which has an almost identical interior to the Jaffrey Meetinghouse pre-Civil War.
“There are just a lot of interesting stories like that,” Stephenson said.
He said that many of the buildings, based on when they’re built, show the fashions of the time. Some buildings have been picked up and moved, either to face a new direction, or to new town centers when populations shifted.
The collection spans the entirety of New England, including buildings in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, with the majority in New Hampshire.
There will be an opening reception for the exhibit, which is hosted at the Jaffrey Civic Center, on Friday, Feb. 28, at 6 p.m. The exhibit will be on display at the civic center and viewable during the hours of noon to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There is no admission fee. View the exhibit online at rs41.org/meetinghouse.pdf.
In a separate exhibit, also presented by the Jaffrey Historical Society and curated by Jeanne Duval, the civic center will also hold an opening reception at 6 p.m. on Friday for “A Behind the Scenes Look at the Jaffrey Meetinghouse.” Visitors will get a glimpse into work to preserve the facility through objects, photographs and documents.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.