Quick History Stops: Petersham, MA

On a beautifully sunny day in October as the leaves changed to their brightest colors, I took a trip to rural Worcester County. My first walk was around the Petersham Common Historic District, where I made several quick history stops. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, this relaxing and open space has many classic New England small town places of interest, including churches, a country store, town offices, a library, a historical society building, and walking trails.

First Congregational Parish, Unitarian in Petersham is one of the classic whitewashed New England church buildings in town. This is the fourth meeting house of the congregation and was built after 1845. The congregation was founded in 1733 and currently describes itself as “liberal religious congregation in the Unitarian Universalist tradition”. According to information provided by several former church ministers, the First Meeting House was built in 1735, just two years after the congregation began, but the building no longer exists, possibly from burning down. The Second Meeting House was built in 1783 and burned down in 1845, as it was mostly abandoned. The departure from traditional congregationalism to unitarianism happened in that building and occurred during the ministry of Rev. Luther Willson from 1819 to 1834. Members who wished to remain congregational formed North Congregational Church, now Orthodox Congregational Church, which I will talk about in a few paragraphs. The Third Meeting House was built in 1842 and burned down in 1908.

Significant research has been conducted on one of its ministers, Rev. Earl Clement Davis, who ran the church for twenty years from 1933 to 1953. Davis was born in Lewiston, ME in 1976. This is the same town appearing in the book One Goal by Amy Bass about a state championship winning boy’s soccer team composed mostly of refugee children, which I reviewed in 2023. After receiving a Bachelor of Divinity from Harvard, he served at four churches, his last being in Petersham. His papers are currently held at Clark University.

Three architecturally significant buildings stand in a row on one side of the common. The first is the Country Store in Petersham, which is now a cafe serving breakfast and lunch along with selling local produce and alcohol. The building was constructed in the Greek Revival style in 1839 by brothers-in-law Samson Wetherell and Benjamin Hamilton. Next door is what looks like a church building in the classic whitewashed New England  style but is now Petersham Town Hall. Next to the town the little red brick Town Office Building. While the town was incorporated in 1754, either the Town Hall or Federal style offices were not built until 1848 and originally served as a school house. The historical records on what was what were unclear to me. Next to the offices is Petersham Center Cemetery, which contains burials from 1742 to the present day. Across the street on the town common is a memorial to the men and women of Petersham who served in World War I. Also in this area was a small memorial plaque to Lloyd James Mitchell, a Marine who died at Iwo Jima in Japan during World War II. His body was returned to Petersham and buried in East Street Cemetery.

The Petersham Memorial Library was constructed under the direction of architect Edmund Russell Wilson between 1889 and 1891 and dedicated to those who had served in the American Civil War. The library is made of stone and has unique architectural features including windows and dormers of many sizes. Willson was a partner in the Providence, RI-based architectural firm Stone, Carpenter, & Willson, which he joined in 1885, but his career was cut short when he died at age fifty in 1906 while in Petersham. Their other work included creating Pendleton House at RISD Museum of Art, whose owner Charles Pendleton was featured in the recent Historic New England exhibit “The Importance of Being Furnished”, and remodeling John Brown House in Providence.

I spent some time looking at the rambling building beside First Congregational Parish, Unitarian. With its mustard yellow paint, gambrel roofs, and multiple additions, the Federal style house at 5 Common Street may have served as a parsonage. The property is listed as being built in 1890 and containing nine bedrooms and five bathrooms, but nothing else about its history was evident from my search.

A candidate for cutest building was the Petersham Historical Society, an organization incorporated in 1923 with a building constructed in 1926. The tiny red brick structure was wisely built in a Colonial Revival style to mimic the Federalist style Town Hall, except for the curiously nautical round window above the sole entrance. Outside the building is a plaque for the routing Shays’ Rebellion. In 1787, Daniel Shays and about a hundred and fifty of his closest friends fought against the newly formed Commonwealth of Massachusetts when the state attempted to collect taxes. General Benjamin Lincoln (no relation to the president Abraham Lincoln) shut down the rebellion. The U.S. Constitution was published three months later. The memorial was erected by the New England Society of Brooklyn, NY as a gift to the Petersham Historical Society. Although the year was not inscribed on the plaque, the language suggests this was around the tie the building was constructed in the early 20^th century.

As referenced above, Orthodox Congregational Church began in 1829 when the First Parish became Unitarian. The congregation is currently a member of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches. This church is unique in design. Although it has the white paint and Neoclassical elements of many New England churches, the two green front doors are paired with large, square windows and opened shutters to create the shape of religious crosses. The octagonal bell tower near the front of the church has a rounded dome with a weathervane on top. I have seen hundreds of churches from this time period, but never another with these architectural features. Next door to the church is an elegant Neoclassical style parsonage.

The last stop in the area was North Common Meadow managed by the Trustees of Reservations. Informational signage for the trail stood across the street from Orthodox Congregational and next to the little former law office of Aaron Brooks, another candidate for cutest building. The conservation area contains over five miles of trails across twenty-five acres. While free and open to the public, no parking is available at this location. However, the on street parking at the town common is only a quarter mile from the trailhead.