Old Ship Church - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Old Ship Church was built in 1681 in Hingham

Hingham, Massachusetts

Hingham is a town in northern Plymouth County on the South Shore of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and suburb in Greater Boston. The United States Census Bureau 2008 estimated population was 22,561...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is the oldest church in continuous ecclesiastical use in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is the only remaining 17th century Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

meetinghouse in America. On October 9, 1960, it was designated a National Historic Landmark

National Historic Landmark

A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

and on November 15, 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

Old Ship Church is, according to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, "the oldest continuously worshiped-in church in North America and the only surviving example in this country of the English Gothic style of the 17th century. The more familiar delicately spired white Colonial churches of New England would not be built for more than half a century." Within the church, "the ceiling, made of great oak beams, looks like the inverted frame of a ship," notes The Washington Post. "Built in 1681, it is the oldest church in continuous use as a house of worship in North America."

The most distinctive feature of the structure is its Hammerbeam roof

Hammerbeam roof

Hammerbeam roof, in architecture, is the name given to an open timber roof, typical of English Gothic architecture, using short beams projecting from the wall.- Design :...

, a Gothic open timber construction, the most well-known example that of Westminster Hall. Some of those working on the soaring structure were no doubt ship carpenters; others were East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

ns familiar with the method of constructing a hammerbeam roof.

History

The first minister of the Hingham congregation who built Old Ship was the Rev. Peter Hobart, who had attended the heavily Puritan Cambridge University. Natives of Hingham

Hingham, Norfolk

Hingham is a market town and civil parish in the Forehoe district in the heart of rural Norfolk, in England. The civil parish covers an area of and had a population of 2,078 in 944 households as of the 2001 census. Grand architecture surrounds the market place and village green...

in Norfolk County

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, East Anglia

East Anglia

, Peter Hobart, his father Edmund and his twin brother Capt. Joshua Hobart were among Hingham's most prominent early settlers. Edmund Hobart and his wife Margaret (Dewey), said Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...

, "were eminent for piety and feared God above many." Assisting Hobart in the foundation of the congregation was Rev. Robert Peck, Hobart's senior and formerly rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

of St Andrew's Church in Hingham

Hingham, Norfolk

, Norfolk

Norfolk

After 44 years of service, minister Peter Hobart died on Jan. 20, 1679, on the eve of the building of the new house of worship. Hobart's diary of events in Hingham, begun in the year 1635, was continued on his death by his son David. By the time Old Ship was built, Harvard-educated Rev. John Norton, who had been ordained by Peter Hobart, had assumed Hobart's ministry. (Rev. John Norton was the great-grandfather of Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...

, wife of President John Adams

John Adams

John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...

of Braintree, Massachusetts

Braintree, Massachusetts

The Town of Braintree is a suburban city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although officially known as a town, Braintree adopted a municipal charter, effective 2008, with a mayor-council form of government and is considered a city under Massachusetts law. The population was 35,744...

.)

Old Ship Church deacon

Deacon

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

John Leavitt

Deacon John Leavitt was a tailor, public officeholder, and founding deacon of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, the only remaining 17th-century Puritan meeting house in America and the oldest church in continuous ecclesiastical use in the United States...

, whose son John married Rev. Hobart's daughter Bathsheba, was deacon when Old Ship was constructed and he argued forcefully for the construction of a new meetinghouse. The matter of replacing the old thatched log meeting house stirred intense emotion in Hingham, and it took two heated town meetings to settle on a site for the new edifice, which was built on land donated by Capt. Joshua Hobart, twin brother of Rev. Peter Hobart. Ultimately, the town appropriated £430 for the new building, said to be the equal of any in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...

. The modern frame edifice, devoid of ornamentation, was raised in 1681, and accommodated its first worship service the following year.

The program celebrating the 275th anniversary of the raising of the Old Ship Church in July 1956 described the raising of the meetinghouse:

The John Leavitt pew in Old Ship Church, designated for the deacon

Deacon

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

, still remains set aside today.

Current use

The current minister

Minister of religion

In Christian churches, a minister is someone who is authorized by a church or religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidance to the community...

is Kenneth Read-Brown, a descendant of Rev. Peter Hobart. The congregation is Unitarian Universalist and is a Welcoming Congregation. Some of the meetinghouse furnishings still in use date to its founding: Old Ship's christening

Infant baptism

Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. In theological discussions, the practice is sometimes referred to as paedobaptism or pedobaptism from the Greek pais meaning "child." The practice is sometimes contrasted with what is called "believer's baptism", or...

bowl, for instance, was made before 1600 and was likely brought to the Massachusetts Bay Colony by emigrants from Hingham, England.

Old Ship Burying Ground

Old Ship Church is surrounded by a large colonial graveyard amidst gently undulating hills. The graveyard is sometimes called the First Settlers cemetery. It was originally part of a 6 acres (24,281.2 m²) tract of land granted by the town to Thomas Gill, one of Hingham's earliest settlers. (It now comprises 16 acres (64,749.8 m²), and is the largest and oldest cemetery in Hingham.) Buried within its precincts are many of Hingham's earliest settlers and their descendants, including members of the Cushing, Hersey, Otis, Chaffee, Lane, Andrews, Hobart, Loring, Bates, Leavitt, Thaxter, Tower, Beal, Lincoln, Fearing and other prominent early families.

Among the prominent individuals buried in the graveyard are: Thomas Joy (1638–1678), builder of the first statehouse in Boston (the building was built of timber); Rev. Peter Hobart (1604–1679), pastor of Old Ship Church, ancestor of Senator John Kerry

John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

; Edmund Hobart, father of Rev. Peter, instrumental in founding Hingham, ancestor of John Henry Hobart

John Henry Hobart

John Henry Hobart was the third Episcopal bishop of New York .He vigorously promoted the extension of the Episcopal Church in Central and Western New York...

; William Hersey, one of Hingham's first settlers, ancestor of writer John Hersey

John Hersey

John Richard Hersey was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer and journalist considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling devices of the novel are fused with non-fiction reportage...

; Col. Samuel Thaxter (1665–1740), one of "His Majesty's Council and Col. of His Regiment," delegate to the General Court and Hingham selectman; Col. Benjamin Lincoln (1699–1771), member of "His Majesty's Council," town selectman, town clerk and father of Major General Benjamin Lincoln

Benjamin Lincoln

Benjamin Lincoln was an American army officer. He served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War...

; Mrs. Sarah Langley Hersey Derby (1714–1790), founder of Derby Academy

Derby Academy

Derby Academy is an elementary and middle school that offers a coeducational curriculum to Pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade. It is located near Route 3A and Broad Cove in Hingham, Massachusetts...

in Hingham, widow of Dr. Ezekiel Hersey and of Salem merchant Richard Derby, father of Elias Hasket Derby

Elias Hasket Derby

Elias Hasket Derby was among the wealthiest and most celebrated of post-Revolutionary merchants in Salem, Massachusetts, and owner of the Grand Turk, the first New England vessel to trade directly with China....

; Mary Revere Lincoln (1770–1853), daughter of Paul Revere

Paul Revere

Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...

; Governor John Albion Andrew

John Albion Andrew

John Albion Andrew was a U.S. political figure. He served as the 25th Governor of Massachusetts between 1861 and 1866 during the American Civil War. He was a guiding force behind the creation of some of the first U.S. Army units of black men—including the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry.-Early...

(1818–1867), Civil War governor of Massachusetts, instrumental in founding the 54th

54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

The 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was one of the first official black units in the United States during the Civil War...

and 55th Massachusetts Regiments, the first regiments of black infantry in the Civil War; Wilmon Brewer (1895–1998), philanthropist, poet, donated Old Ordinary tavern to the town of Hingham, along with the More-Brewer Conservation Area; Solomon Lincoln (1804–1881), Hingham attorney, author of first history of Hingham (1827), state senator, president of Boston's Webster Bank, and president of the Hingham Cemetery Corporation.

The oldest burials date from at least 1672, before the building of the current meeting house. The Settlers' Monument in Old Ship burying ground marks the place where the remains of Hingham's earliest settlers were moved after their initial burying place along modern-day Main Street, in front of Old Ship Church, was excavated for the passage of horse-drawn trolleys about 1835.

External links

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