North Congregational Church History

North Congregational Church was organized on April 7, 1825, and known then as the "Second Congregational Church." The First Congregational Church (the mother church) was in St. Johnsbury Center, having been organized on November 21, 1809, by thirteen women and six men. Coincidentally, Second Congregational Church also began with thirteen women and six men.

The present building is the congregation's fourth edifice and the third to be built on this site. Its immediate predecessor was a white wood frame church built in 1847 in the Christopher Wren type of architecture. That building cost about $7,000, and it was said at the time that the men who supervised its construction--namely, three brothers, Erastus, Thaddeus and Joseph Fairbanks--had a wonder-fully good building for the money. North Church came to be known as such with the advent of South Congregational Church in 1851 for which a nearly identical building was constructed. For the next quarter century North and South churches were twin sisters.

North Church prospered during this period to the point that in February 1877, after the regular Wednesday evening prayer meeting, eight young men met with the minister, the Rev. Henry W. Jones, to discuss yet another building. The proposal crystalized rapidly into an intensive campaign and when at the next prayer meeting the young men presented their proposal, they met with no opposition. Within six weeks, a canvassing committee had 400 pledges totaling $ 37,168 for a four-year period. A building committee was appointed with Vermont Governor Horace Fairbanks, son of Erastus Fairbanks, as its chairman. The existing building was moved across the street and after it was no longer needed by the church became the Colonial Opera House (and a furniture store). After the opera house was destroyed by fire in 1923, an apartment building, which retains the name "Colonial," was built on the site.

Fairbanks brothers Horace and Franklin offered to take the contract for the construction of a new church building with the $37,000 which had been raised. As executors of the estate of Erastus Fairbanks, enough money was secured from that source to finish the project. The actual cost was never revealed; however at the time, the Caledonian-Record reported that estimates ran from $50,000 to $125,000.

Like so many of St. Johnsbury's more notable buildings North Church was built by architect Lambert Packard. He based his design on a never executed design by the famed H.H. Richardson. Packard changed the basic style from Richardsonian Romanesque to Early English Gothic. That decision and the high-Victorian interior of the sanctuary resulted in this unique building, regarded as one the major Victorian churches in New England.

The building is a "made in Vermont" original. Some of the foundation stones supporting the 140-foot tower came from the old county jail in Danville. "Spoils from Satan's Kingdom," said the Rev. Jones. These stones were laid crosswise at the bottom of a trench twenty-two feet below the cornerstone. The 834,590 bricks were baked in a local brickyard. The quarry of Lt. Gov. Nelson W. Fisk of Isle LaMotte in Lake Champlain furnished 239 carloads of limestone building stone. The 20,000 square feet of slate on the original roof was quarried in Vermont. The soft red cherry for the pews came from within a thirty-mile radius of St. Johnsbury and was picked out stick by stick by expert craftsmen. Only the red granite pillars are not a Vermont product; they were quarried in the Bay of Fundy.

The tower of North Church rises 140 feet and offers an excellent aerial view of St. Johnsbury and environs from the bell platform. Horace and Franklin Fairbanks presented the bell, which weights 3,004 pounds and sounds E flat. The inscription on the bell reads: "Unto you, O men, I call; And my voice is to the sons of man." The tower underwent major structural repairs in 1977-78 when a concrete reinforcing sleeve was inserted in the structure. The project was financed by North Church people and other St. Johnsbury area citizens, as well as a generous historical preservation grant.

The church's organ with its elegant cherry case appears much as it did when it was given to the church by Charles Fairbanks, another son of Erastus. Built by Hutchings-Plaisted of Boston, the organ was reputedly the largest instrument north of Boston. Major alterations in 1922, 1963 and 1986 have resulted in a pipe organ, which though it bears little interior resemblance to the original, is still, in the opinion of many, the finest instrument of its kind in the area.

by Elizabeth A. Sargent and updated by Jay Sprout.