Category Archives: Southwick

The original meeting house in Southwick of 1773 was replaced ten years later with a new one, which burned in 1824. These buildings (or at least the first) had been located south of the town center, but the third meeting house, built in 1824-1825, was located in Southwick’s central village. A Federal/Greek Revival structure, the Southwick Congregational Church is considered to be one of the finest works of its architect, Isaac Damon of Northampton. According to George C. Gardener, writing in The American Architect and Building News (Vol. XLVII, No. 996, Jan. 26, 1895):

Capt. Isaac Damon appears to have been the leading architect of Western Massachusetts from 1812 to 1840, his influence on public and ecclesiastical work being even greater than [Asher] Benjamin’s on domestic. He designed and built at least thirteen churches in this region and nearly all the town-halls and court-houses; his specialty, however, was bridges, and there are several of his drawings still preserved

As the church neared completion, on November 6, 1824, two letters signed by the men working on the church were placed in a box inside one of the columns. These were rediscovered during a restoration in 1950 (see pdf article) and reveal that the workers came, not from Southwick, but from many other towns in the region.