"The present Congregational Church is the fifth meeting house built by the townspeople, the third on this site. It was started in 1798 and took three years to complete at a cost exceeding 10,000 pounds. Ebenezer Clifford probably with the help of Bradbury Johnson, was the architect. Unfortunately the church records for the building this structure are sketchy. There is a record that Ebenezer Clifford was paid 30 pounds, 15 shillings, 6 pence.
Except for a two-story addition to the rear of the church in 1930 and the addition of an elevator in 1961, the exterior of the church remains much the same. It probably was not painted at first except around the windows. Later it received a coat of white paint in the 1830's, followed by two shades of tan. It was not until 1940 that it again became white.
Mr. Clifford, independent of others, began to change the meetinghouse design to that of a church. The long axis is parallel to the street, as in a typical meetinghouse. The entrance, still on the long side, is much more elaborate than that of the earlier ones. There is a projecting two-story bay with three doors below and three windows above, and windows on either side. Over this rises the tower, with an octagonal belfry, lantern and dome.
Another unusual feature is the hip roof, which dates back to the days of the square meetinghouse. There is a cornice between the upper and lower tiers of windows like that at the eaves, across the front and rear of the building. Pilasters adorn the porch and corners of the building. The one Palladian window is the pulpit window at the rear of the building still opposite the main entrance as it used to be, but now raised to the second floor of the addition.
The town placed a clock with four faces in the tower in 1848. The face of this clock was large and was changed in 1950 when William Dudley redesigned .it. In 1956 a new electric clock was installed. In 1962 the false face of the clock on the rear of the tower was removed...
In 1838, the parishioners decided to remodel. All the square box pews were removed and the room was partitioned into two floors. The upper floor became the sanctuary with the pulpit at the west end. The original pulpit window was covered over on the inside. The lower floor was to be used as "lecture rooms." Today you may still note on the panelling on the first floor where the pews were attached. The sounding board which hung over the pulpit now hangs in the first floor hallway. The pulpit window was carefully raised to the second floor level when the addition was built to the rear of the church in 1930...
The meetinghouse was a place for secular as well as religious gatherings. In the 1830's the building was host to important trials, the most famous being the Cilley will case when Daniel Webster and Jeremiah Mason re opposing counsel. For its last great secular gathering, Daniel Webster was again present, presiding over the 50th anniversary celebration of Dr. Benjamin Abbot's service as principal of the Academy. There was a great crowd (the meetinghouse was built to hold 800 people) as well as notables of the day. The meetinghouse, whose pulpit and pews had just been removed, was the only place large enough to contain such a gathering.
The 1798 meetinghouse is the present-day representative of the church organized in 1639 by John Wheelwright who founded the town." - National Register Nomination form