Rocky Hill Meeting House

Rocky Hill Meetinghouse and Parsonage
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Rocky Hill Meeting House, Amesbury, Massachusetts.
Location	Old Portsmouth Rd. Amesbury, Massachusetts
Coordinates
NRHP Reference #	72000115
Added to NRHP	April 11, 1972

The Rocky Hill Meeting House (c. 1785) is a well-preserved New England meeting house located on Old Portsmouth Road in Amesbury, Massachusetts. It is the best-preserved example of an original 18th-century meeting house interior in New England, and now a nonprofit museum owned by Historic New England and open to the public several afternoons a year.

The meeting house was built to serve west parish of Salisbury in approximately 1785, replacing a c. 1715 meeting house. George Washington greeted local townspeople in this meeting house on his northward journey in 1789. By the 1840s, regular religious services had come to an end. Historic New England acquired the meeting house in 1941.

Its interior has remained virtually unchanged since it was constructed, with the original high pulpit, pentagonal sounding board, deacon's desk, marbleized columns, box pews (complete with graffiti and foot warmers), unfinished stairs to the gallery, and sloping gallery on three sides. The pews have never been painted, the marbleized pulpit and pillars supporting the galleries still feature their original paint, and the building still contains its original hardware.

See also

• List of the oldest buildings in Massachusetts
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Essex County, Massachusetts

External links

• Historic New England: Rocky Hill Meeting House