Narrative Description of
Enosburg Congregational Memorial Church
Exterior
Facing to the west on the Old Boston Post Road in Enosburg Center, Memorial Church is a Italianate structure built in 1820, and rebuilt in 1870. The white clapboarded church has a wooden plaque stating ìMemorial Church Built 1820 Rebuilt 1870î above the front entrance that leads a vestibule with stairs to the upper and lower interior levels. The massing of the church is a rectangle, three bays wide and three bays deep, slightly longer than wide, and is capped by a standing-seam metal roof. Centered on the front facade is a square Italianate tower with steeple, half-detached from the Greek Revival front pediment. The corners are decorated with raised panel pilasters, above wooden quoins. Rising above six poured concrete steps of various sizes to the level of the vestibule, an intermediary level between the two interior floors. The rear has a ground level entrance even with the floor of the lower interior level. The stone foundation is visible to either side of the front entrance, but is barely visible on the sides. There is the suggestion of outbuildings, probably a stable, by elder surviving members of the congregation, but remains are not visible and would require archeological survey to locate.
On the front facade, a square
Italianate tower is centered with front entrance in the base. The towerís
clapboards rise unbroken, to above the roof-line of the main mass. At this
level there is one blind oculus located in the south, west, and north sides.
The oculi have labeled lintels and dentils around the flat plane of the
interior, which is recessed into the tower surface. Above the oculi are
the first of two breaks in plane, where the square tower is ringed with
decorative moldings supporting a slightly pitched roof. This roof surrounds
a stepped in section, where arched vents are located around the four sides
of the tower and molded quoins decorate the corners. These vents are slightly
higher than wide, and have arched, labeled lintels with keystones. Pilasters
line their vertical sides. The next visual break, with intricate moldings
on the soffit, leads to another roof. The third level up is octagonal, with
vents surrounding the structure. These louvers run practically edge to edge,
and are finer openings than the level below. The spire crowns the tower,
and rises from a slightly flared base to a considerable height. Wooden shingles
roof the spire.
Returning to the base of the tower, the front entrance is located in the center, with a round arch, labeled lintel crowning a molded archivolt over a semi-circular transom above a pair of long vertically paneled doors. This entrance is surmounted by a horizontal roof extending a foot out from the plane of the tower. The flat-roofed door hood is supported by two decorative Italianate brackets, and decorative moldings with a scrollwork filigree beneath. Midway between the hood and the blind oculas on the front is the aforementioned plaque.
On the plane of the front facade are the two rectangular flanking windows, which are stained glass with sliding sash in three sections with diamond shape panes, or quarrels. The profile of the window is long and thin, with a flattened arch at the top. Above the window is another flat hood supported by the two Italianate brackets. The corners of the main mass of the church have quoins rising from the foundation. A wooden ìstring- courseî surrounds the building above the quoins, separating the pilasters with Doric capitals above from the string course below.
Three bays deep, there are two courses of windows on the symmetrical side facades. The ground floor has two-over-two sash windows, while the second floor has stained glass windows, as described in the front facade. On the north facade, the window on the ground floor, west end, has shutters flanking. These appear to be an anomaly as no other mounting hardware for any of the other windows can be detected, but there are surplus shutters in the storage area in the first floor.
Centered in the rear facade there is a narrow tower, projecting some seven feet out from plane. The top of the tower is below the crest of the roof, and is in the shape of the pediment of the main mass, on a smaller scale, complete with returns and Doric capped pilasters. On the south side of the tower is an entrance door with two arched windows. On the second floor is a one-over-one stained glass sash window, which is duplicated on the north side. Just to the south of the tower, on the plane of the main facade, is a thin brick chimney which rises to pierce the soffit and extend above the roof.
Interior
Entering through front doors, there is a small vestibule with a broad set of stairs descending to the east and the meeting room, and a more narrow set to the north and south, leading to the main sanctuary. Descending into the meeting room, there are large, rectangular tables with Windsor benches standing on a gray painted, wide-boarded pine floor. On the east wall are three doorways leading to three back rooms along the east (or back) wall of the church. Flanking the entrance with the stairs on the west wall are two doors, one to the north, and the other on the south side. There are two windows in the north wall, and two in the south. Standing in the north-west and south-west corners of the room are two large wood burning furnaces with vents leading to the sanctuary above through large open vents. The cast iron covers for these vents, on the floor of the sanctuary above, have pentagrams within a geometric pattern. There are two pianos on the east wall, and an organ on the west wall. Moving to the rear of the room (towards the east) are the three rooms. The south room contains a east facing window, a large cupboard, and a counter stretching the west wall. The center room is deeper than the flanking rooms to the north and south, as it extends towards the east the six feet of the rear tower. A door on the east wall leads to a narrow stair that rises to the back of the choir. Also in the center room are a cast iron stove, the rear entrance to the building, a set of counters on the north wall, and a door passing to the north room. This northern room has a counter stretching the east wall, with a dry sink centered under the window. The remainder of wall space is occupied by four large cupboards.
Returning to the main meeting room, there are two doors on the west wall flanking the stair that rises to the entrance vestibule. The door to the south provides access to a storage area under the tower and vestibule; this area stretches around the descending staircase. The storage room contains various scraps and building materials, including clapboards, beams, and shutters. The north door from the meeting room leads to a small storage room that also accesses the ìbuilding materialî storage room, and also provides access to a small lavatory through a door to the north. This lavatory contains a sink centered under a window (the one with the shutters), and a rudimentary toilet. Both the sink and the toilet consist of holes in wooden counters or decks, with the sink having a porcelain coated metal basin installed. The sink and toilet have unheated running water supplies, with pipes exposed, suggesting that the plumbing may have been added at a later date. The floor of the room is tiled in a geometric pattern of brown and white.
Returning up the stairs to the entrance vestibule, two more sets of stairs, one to the north and another to the south, rise to the level of the sanctuary. At the level of the sanctuary, the stairs turn 180 degrees at a landing to rise to a raised gallery at the back of the sanctuary. On this landing, doorways lead to the side aisles of the main sanctuary.
The main sanctuary stretches the length of the main mass of the building, excluding the bell tower, but including the rear (east end) extension which houses the raised choir. Windows line the walls for illumination and ventilation, and there is also a chandelier hanging in the center of the room that has been converted from gas to electricity. The wall sconces along the sides of the windows, three to each side wall, have likewise been converted to electricity. The walls of the sanctuary are plaster, which is probably original considering the cracked, but intact, condition. The arched ceiling of the sanctuary has been covered in twelve inch acoustic tile adhered to the plaster surface. This is one of the only ìmodernî alterations to the entire building.
The pews are arranged in three sections, forming four aisles, and are curved around a radius radiating from the pulpit. The pews have curved backs and are elaborately decorated with brackets and raised panels on the ends. The pulpit is decorated in a similar style, with raised panel pilasters at the corners and multi-layered cornices. Behind the pulpit is a reredos, consisting of a wall of some two feet, decorated in a similar style, and capped by a short curtain hung from a brass railing.
The choir is tucked into the extension off the main mass and is tiered. The choir members are seated in individual chairs, as opposed to benches, and the organ sits on the top tier. The organ faces to the east, so a mirror has been mounted at eye level so the organist may see the choir director behind them. Beside the organ is the top of the ìsecretedî stair that rises from the lower floor. Elders tell of Santa Claus mysteriously appearing from these stairs at Christmas festivities.
In the rear of the sanctuary, to the west, there is a raised gallery separated from the main sanctuary by a low wall decorated as the reredos. There are three tiers of pews in the gallery, and another organ sits on a fourth tier. On the back (west) wall of the gallery is the access to the bell tower through small door.