The Steeples Project grew out of the need for greater public awareness and appreciation of the roles religious structures play within New Hampshire communities. Early meetinghouses were funded by town appropriation. As citizens later gained the right to choose their own religious affiliation, construction of smaller, single-denomination churches proliferated—sometimes leaving the long-established church with large buildings, historically significant but inadequately supported. The ebb and flow of local prosperity is reflected by cycles of interest and neglect of these historic structures. Some may be lost forever.

A Cautionary Tale

Gathered in 1637, the congregation of the Old First Church in Springfield is the oldest in western Massachusetts. Its fourth meetinghouse was designed and built on Court Square by architect Isaac Damon in 1819. The structure's massive framing timbers were shipped down the Connecticut River from New Hampshire. A stop on the Underground Railroad, the abolitionist John Brown spoke there. Daniel Webster too. In 1848, President John Quincy Adams's body laid in state in its sanctuary. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

After failing to engage the local community in its preservation, the church's small congregation was forced to give up. Their web site now reads: "Sadly Old First Church closed after it conducted its last service on Sunday, December 30th [2007] & has been sold." Its contents were auctioned, its records deposited at the Springfield Library, and its food pantry, the largest in the city, relocated.

No church is too old, too beautiful, or too historic to fail.