Two hundred years ago today, the United Church of Bethel, the first church, and public building, to be erected in town, was consecrated on high ground not far from the White River, after people throughout New England had suffered through one of the hardest years in recent memory: 1800 and Froze to Death.
This evening at 7 p.m., as part of its Christmas Eve service, churchgoers will commemorate the building’s extraordinary history with a slate of carols, musical performances and readings.
After the service, a Vermont Roadside Historic Marker noting the connection between the erection of the church and the events of 1816 will be unveiled. There will also be celebratory fireworks.
People attending the service will receive a complimentary commemorative booklet describing the building’s history, written by Bethel resident and local historian Janet Burnham.
The year 1816 was, said Tom Harty, pastor at the United Church of Bethel, “the hungry year, the cold year, the lean year that caused (the town) to come together.”
Scientists now know that the extreme weather of 1816 — frost and snow in the summer months, dying crops and livestock, a starvation existence for many — were caused by the cataclysmic eruption in 1815 of the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora. The enormous volume of ash released by the eruption drifted around the globe, but particularly affected the weather in North America and Europe.
But, in 1816, said Burnham, nobody made the link between Tambora and the meteorological conditions in New England.
The town of Bethel was chartered in 1779, and by 1816 there was a store, Bethel Mills and Marsh’s brickyard, which furnished the bricks for the new church, Burnham said.
The villagers had long intended to build a church. But it is possible, Burnham said, that the residents interpreted the dire conditions of 1816 as a warning that end times were near, and they had better speed the process of putting up a place of worship.
“Maybe they thought God was angry at them for not building a church earlier,” Burnham said.
Five denominations in town collaborated in raising the funds for the red brick church: the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians and Universalists. Burnham writes in her longer book The History of the Bethel United Church that 74 congregants from the five denominations raised the $5,000 it took to build the United Church of Bethel.
For the church’s architecture, Burnham said, it is highly likely that they followed the example of Asher Benjamin, who had earlier designed the Old South Church in Windsor and the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston, among other well-known New England buildings.
Benjamin was the first American architect to publish pattern books that outlined classic designs for houses, churches and a courthouse. His first book, The Country Builder’s Assistant, was published in 1797. (The Ridge in Orford features houses of Benjamin’s design.)
The Christmas Eve service is the culmination of a year-long celebration of the church, said Harty.
Other events have included an ice cream social and musical recitals, talks by Howard Coffin, a historian (and parishioner) who writes about the history of Vermont’s troops in the Civil War, and a talk by Peter Galbraith, the former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and a former Democratic Vermont state senator from Windham County.
The United Church of Bethel currently has 65 members, and comprises parishioners from both the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association. Like other New England churches, the United Church of Bethel has experienced a dwindling congregation, Harty said.
A 2013 Gallup poll found that Vermont was the least religious of the 50 states, followed by New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.
“A lot of towns have lost their churches, but it doesn’t result in growth for other churches,” Harty said. “When they wither, they wither. It’s tough.”
That said, Harty added, official church rolls tend to leave out the participation of other townspeople who come on Christmas and Easter, help with the church’s food bank or fundraisers and still think of it as the family church, even if they do not attend regularly.
When the United Church of Bethel was erected it was the largest church in town, and its interior still is the largest of any church in town. At the time, the interior would have been open from floor to ceiling, with large windows admitting light. There were box pews, and on cold Sundays parishioners would have brought their own heaters.
In 1853, the building underwent substantial renovation. The box pews were removed and replaced with a modern pews divided by a center aisle. The townspeople installed a second floor, irrevocably closing off the high ceilings. The second floor, now used by the town’s historical society, is held in place by iron rods suspended from the building’s queen trusses.
It was only last year that the church replaced the original 1853 pew cushions stuffed with horse hair and mattress ticking, although the covers had been replaced many times. “Make do, use it up,” Harty joked.
The windows are original but they have new glazing and storm windows, and the stained-glass windows are protected by plexiglass, Harty said. The ceiling installed in 1853 is made of stamped tin.
The aim, always, Harty said, is to “strike a practical balance between historic preservation and self-preservation.”
The church has the only carillon in Bethel, which rings at 6 p.m. and plays three hymns, as well as ringing both the noon and 6 p.m. Angelus for the town’s Catholic church. It tolls for funerals and peals for weddings and rings before the Sunday service.
Larry Nobile, a parishioner who was married to his wife, Ellen, in the church 32 years ago, noted that the church is known for its embrace of visitors and parishioners who come from Bethel and surrounding towns, but also from Montpelier, Burlington and Enfield.
“We’ve had people say they felt really welcome here,” Nobile said.
People talk about organized religion, Harty said, but the United Church of Bethel is more like “disorganized religion,” with a wide range of both religious and secular readings.
Harty, a ninth generation Vermonter who began his career as a state trooper in 1975, and became pastor in Bethel in 2005, used to divide his time as pastor between Bethel and the First Congregational Church of Randolph in Randolph Center. But he now presides solely in Bethel, with the occasional service elsewhere.
What he aims to convey during the services, Harty said, is that “we’re all on the journey together,” a lesson also well understood by Bethel villagers in 1816, when unprecedented circumstances brought them together to build a place of worship and public meeting.
“It’s nice to have these touchstones and milestones in communities,” Harty said.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.