The “period of significance” associated with the Wiscasset Historic District has been extended in order to include the third incarnation of the First Congregational Church, according to Christi Mitchell, Maine’s coordinator for the National Register of Historic Places.
Mitchell, who is also an architectural historian for the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, said the drive to extend the period of significance stemmed from a request in February 2011 by Shirley Roth, a member of the church’s congregation.
“It came to our attention that the … congregational church did not fit within the parameters of the historic district,” which was established with a range of 1739 to 1870, Mitchell said.
“It didn’t contribute to the historic district since it was built much more recently; it was a replacement of a church that had burned,” Mitchell said.
According to a press release from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, documentation was recently approved by the National Register of Historic places to extend the period of significance to 1909, specifically to include the church.
The church, along with the neighboring Lincoln County Court House, “compose an imposing, iconic landmark overlooking the residential and commercial heart of the town,” according to the release.
The documentation provided to the national register touts the church as “one of the finest examples of Colonial Revival architecture in the state.”
The second edition of the church, designed by Samuel Melcher III and built in 1840, burned down in 1907, Mitchell said. The third (and current) edition was designed by “John Calvin Stevens, a very important Maine architect” and his son, John Howard Stevens, she said.
The church is “kind of an important Colonial Revival statement, they could have gone with something more modern, something totally different,” Mitchell said.
Even in the earlier 20th century there was recognition of the important history of Wiscasset and its visual qualities with the town’s 18th and early 19th century buildings, Mitchell said. “I think [the architects] recognized that.”
According to Reverend John Potter, the effort to get the church on the national registry stemmed from a capital campaign for improvements to the building.
Having the church on the national registry will improve the chances of getting grant money, Potter said.
One of the major improvements was the replacement of the church’s steeple in October of 2011 with a fiberglass one from Texas, with an associated price tag of nearly $200,000.
“It’s an absolutely perfect replica of what we had there before” and won’t need to be painted regularly like a traditional wooden steeple, Potter said.
The fact that the church made it onto the registry makes sense, Potter said.
“This building, or the site where this building is, was the first public meeting place in town. … In order for a town to be incorporated, it had to prove there was a worshiping congregation in the community,” Potter said. “There had to be established ministers and worship, and that happened here.”
