Quick History Stops: Amesbury, MA | Part 1
Back in September 2023, I had a history adventure in Amesbury, MA and neighboring Portsmouth, NH. During my first four major stops, I visited Historic New England’s Rocky Hill Meeting House, Lowell’s Boat Shop, a Mary Baker Eddy Historic House, and the Industrial History Center in Amesbury. During this busy day, I also made many quick history stops. For the first post in a two-part mini-series, I visit several houses of worship, two banks, two murals, a library, and a statue, all located in downtown Amesbury.
Friends Meeting House in Amesbury
My first stop was Friends Meeting House in Amesbury, a classic whitewashed Quaker meeting house built in 1851. The Society of Friends has a long tradition in the area. Quakers first settled in nearby Hampton, NH in 1701. By 1710, they had built their first meetinghouse in Amesbury, and the current building is its replacement. Members continue to gather weekly for unprogrammed meetings, meaning that services have no set schedule or minister. The most famous former member was abolitionist poet John Greenleaf Whittier, whose house I would visit later during the trip.
Main Street Congregational Church in Amesbury
In the center of town stands Main Street Congregational Church, part of the United Church of Christ. The classic white New England church building began its life housing a Unitarian Congregational Society but was purchased by the current congregation around 1832 or 1833. Like their Quaker neighbors, this church supported the abolition of slavery and declared the practice “to be a violation of the principals and spirit of Christianity” in 1841. The church also supported the temperance movement, giving the option for church members to take water with communion instead of wine. Across the street is another church building that previously housed Rock Church North Shore. That congregation currently meets across town at Vision Max Cinema.
Amesbury Banks
A branch of Newburyport 5 Cents Savings Bank and The Provident for Savings Bank stand down the street from each other. Near each bank is a large clock decorated with the name of the bank. Newburyport 5 Cents has additional clocks on top of its entrance, allowing visitors to downtown Amesbury to keep track of time the old-fashioned way. Newburyport 5 Cents has been in operation since 1854, while Provident was founded in 1828, making it the 10th oldest bank in the United States.
Strand Theater & Market Street Baptist Church
Strand Theater opened as Crown Theater in 1912 and underwent its name change in 1919. While the venue no longer shows movies or performances, its fun overhead marquee welcomes visitors to Amesbury and advertises local businesses. Nearby, the whitewashed Victorian Italianate-style Market Street Baptist Church was constructed in 1873 and continues to hold weekly services.
Saint Joseph Church of St. André Bessette Parish
Saint Joseph Church of St. André Bessette Parish has two sister churches, Star of the Sea Church and Star of the Sea Chapel, both located in Salisbury, MA. A sharp architectural contrast to the little white churches found across town, the red brick Gothic-style building was constructed in 1876. The church’s namesake, St. André Bessette, a French-Canadian who lived from 1845 to 1937. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.
St. James Episcopal Church
Another unique church building is St. James Episcopal Church, built of stone in 1903. Like many Episcopalian congregations, St. James began as an Anglican church, or part of the Church of England, with earliest records of worship dating back to 1711. Several churches came and went before the current church building, including a 1745 church, the flimsy 1760 King George III’s Chapel that blew over by 1810, several buildings in the 1820s and 1830s, and an 1846 building that burned down in 1899. The current building suffered fire damage in 2001 but was quickly restored. The latest renovations took place in 2007.
Murals
Two murals painted on the sides of buildings in downtown Amesbury depict different aspects of the town’s history. One mural, titled Amesbury: Carriage Center of the World, features the massive, red brick, water powered factories of the Industrial Revolution, a time when the town produced more horse-drawn vehicles than any other place. The other mural honors the life of Whittier, featuring his portrait as an older man, a verse of his poetry, and a romanticised representation of his home.
Amesbury Public Library & Statue of Josiah Bartlett
Designed by local architect Penn Varney and constructed in 1900, the Romanesque Revival-style Amesbury Public Library stands near the end of Main Street. The organization was originally a social library, where locals paid dues to take out books, although the library eliminated these dues in 1895 as they began fundraising for the new building. Whittier was, of course, a library trustee for much of his life, but did not live to see the new library, as he died in 1892. The only addition to the library since its construction was a new wing in 1954. On a green beside the library is a memorial honoring American Revolutionary War era politician Josiah Bartlett who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, ratified the Constitution, and served as the first governor for the state of New Hampshire, among many other accomplishments.
