Review | Virtual Tour of First Congregational Church of Lee, MA
This post marks the 300th entry to my blog! I visited the Berkshires in the summer of 2023 and stopped by First Congregational Church of Lee, MA. During a December blog post, I hinted that I might review the virtual tour hosted on the church website, so here it is a year after the first visit.
Upon first arriving on the website, I saw a pop-up with a photograph showing tour guide Barbara Mahony and a key explaining how to navigate the tour, along with a quote from the church founders written around 1780. Closing this pop-up brought be to the first stop, a Welcome panorama. The church was built in 1800 and rebuilt in 1857 after a fire. The marble cornerstones marking these dates came from a local quarry, which also provided stones for the Boston Public Library and United States Capitol. The congregation believes the timber frame steeple of this church is the tallest in New England and even the United States with a height of 195 feet “from ground to the tip of the spire”. A popup with original blueprints and diagrams provided information on its construction. Pop-ups in the Narthex included pictures of older designs of the building and portraits of the first three pastors.
The Sanctuary of the church was considered “ostentatious” at the time with red carpet, matching red pew cushions, stained glass, and intricate painting. The painting ceilings were restored in the late 1970s by “a crew of eight teenagers” given erasers to clean the ceiling. The ceiling looks quite good, considering this method would not be allowed today. The congregation claimed up to a thousand people could sit in the main sanctuary plus the gallery, but this would break modern fire safety codes. The congregation built this oversized church expecting attendance to grow. Instead, Irish and Italian quarry workers arrived in town, and the local women who married them converted to Catholicism.
Like many congregational churches at the time, this church raised funds through pew rentals, where each family paid an annual fee for a place to sit. The Amen Pews at the front of the church were owned by the wealthiest families, allowing them to show off their snazzy outfits and likely distracting from the true purpose of going to church. Pew rentals were banned in 1918, so now attendees can sit wherever they want. A pew chart showed assigned seating for paying members. On a special platform at the back of the church was the organ installed in 1927. After extensive repair in 2014, the Organ now uses a “MIDI-compatible solid-state switching system”, a fancy way to describe its computer. The tour even provided a brief part of a song played on the organ
The church had Clockworks in its tower with the mechanism created by the Seth Thomas company from Connecticut, which I last learned about during my trip to the American Watch & Clock Museum. Clicking the video icon made the clock strike noon. In the next room over, the video showed Clockweights automatically rising. Even higher up was the Bell rung by the clockworks. This was a safe way to let the public see all parts of the church.
The last stops of the tour were outside the church building. Under restoration was a Fountain by Daniel Chester French, who also created the “Mother Town and Soldier Son” statue in Exeter, NH; the Minuteman in Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, MA; and the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC; along with living at Chesterwood estate in nearby Stockbridge, MA. The Park in front of the church is technically owned by the congregation but shared with the town for events. A Community Room attached to the church building provides space for indoor events.
Overall, I enjoyed learning about the history of First Congregational Church of Lee, MA through this interactive tour. Navigating through the tour through the Panorama List or down arrow icons was straightforward and intuitive. However, I had technical difficulties getting information on some parts of the tour. A play/pause button triggered the audio, but there was no indicator of how long the audio would last, nor the option to move forward or backward through the audio. The button did not revert back to the “play” icon from the “pause” icon after finishing, but when I clicked the button to turn it off, it began playing the audio from the beginning.
I decided to rely on the closed captions instead, available by clicking on a button marked CC. However, instead of displaying as traditional closed caption, the small text appeared as a transcript was still too large for its small popup box, forcing me to drag around the box to read all the words. Adjusting the text size in my browser settings did not change the size of the transcript text. The transcript box on the Welcome page covered the CC and Audio control buttons, so I had to reload the page to make it go away.
Other than this hiccup, the tour worked beautifully. I hope more historic buildings open to the public will create similar virtual experience, allowing visitors from anywhere with internet to experience these unique spaces.