In a short public hearing Wednesday, the Rindge Select Board accepted $21,646 in unanticipated funds from the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program for work that has been done on the Meetinghouse.

LCHIP supports both historic preservation and land conservation projects, and grant recipients must match each dollar contributed with at least one added dollar and complete the funded projects according to the program’s standards. The Rindge Meetinghouse was selected as one of the projects LCHIP supported in 2023, one of 12 historic buildings receiving a grant.

Rindge’s Meetinghouse is actually the second meetinghouse for the town, built in 1796 in the same location as the first meetinghouse after it was demolished for being too small. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

When the meetinghouse was first built, it was common that the town hall also served as a church, as it was usually the largest gathering spot in town. However, after the Toleration Act in the early 1800s, which no longer required church membership, the town began to lease half of the building to the church, an arrangement that continues to this day, with the First Congregational Church operating out of the upper floor. It is one of the few original meetinghouses in the state that is still used both by the town and as a church building.

Rindge’s portion of the grant – a total of $91,850 – included the repair and painting of the steeple on the Meetinghouse, as part of larger project to repaint the entire exterior, as well as repointing some of the masonry on the building. The work being done on the Meetinghouse accompanies work also being done on the historic horse sheds behind the building, which were also being repainted, using funds from the state’s Moose Plate Grant fund.

The funds cover scraping and cleaning loose paint, replacing rotted boards and trim boards on both the steeple and in the horse sheds and painting the steeple from the main roof to the top of the steeple.

The town anticipates applying for further LCHIP funding to continue work on the Meetinghouse, including repair or replacement of windows.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.