The Pelham Town Hall Historic District encompasses the remaining municipal portion of the center of

Pelham, Massachusetts Pelham is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,280 at the 2020 census. Its ZIP Code is shared with Amherst. Pelham is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. History ...

as laid out between 1738 and 1743. It includes the Old Town Hall, built in 1743, which is claimed by the town to be the oldest continuously used town hall in the United States. It also includes the 1843 Greek Revival Congregational church, and the town's first cemetery, founded in 1739. The district was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1971. The land which became Pelham was acquired by the Lisburn Proprietors, Scotch-Irish emigrants, in 1738. The next year, a lot of was laid out for a meeting house, town pound, training field, and cemetery. The meeting house (now the town hall) was built on this parcel in 1743. Initially used for both religious and civic purposes, its religious function ended after the state mandated the

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular s ...

in 1833. The Greek Revival church was built next door in 1839; it now houses the local historical society. The town center is historically significant as the last organized encampment site of rebel forces led by

Daniel Shays Daniel Shays (August 1747 September 29, 1825) was an American soldier, revolutionary and farmer famous for allegedly leading Shays' Rebellion, a populist uprising against controversial debt collection and tax policies in Massachusetts in 1786� ...

during the

Shays' Rebellion Shays Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades. T ...

. The town hall is a two-story wood-frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. Its main facade is five bays wide, with a projecting central square vestibule. The church is a single-story frame structure, with its gabled roof oriented perpendicular to that of the town hall. It has corner pilasters, which rise to an entablature, and it is topped by a single-stage square belfry with octagonal spire.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic districts in Hampshire County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Hampshire County, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts

See also

References