Rockingham Meeting House: Vermont's Oldest Intact Public Building

Built between seventeen eighty-seven and eighteen oh one on a hilltop above the Connecticut River, the Rockingham Meeting House is the oldest intact public building in Vermont.

For its first four decades it served double duty: Congregational worship on the Sabbath, and town meetings and civic business on other days. Church services ended in eighteen thirty-nine, town meetings in eighteen sixty-nine, after which the building stood empty for years.

A restoration effort in nineteen oh six was one of Vermont's earliest historic preservation projects. The National Park Service designated it a National Historic Landmark in two thousand. It is still a working community gathering space and one of the finest surviving examples of New England Colonial architecture.