Congregational Church of Burlington (1836)

In the eighteenth century, two parishes were established in what was then the West Woods section of Farmington: the New Cambridge Ecclesiastical Society in 1742 and the West Britain Ecclesiastical Society, gathered in 1774 and incorporated in 1783. That same year, the West Britain Society dedicated their meeting house, constructed after several years of contention over where to build it. The two parishes of West Britain and New Cambridge joined in 1785 to form the new town of Bristol, but differences between the two parishes later led to the separation of West Britain as the town of Burlington in 1806. The first meeting house had been outgrown by then. According to Epaphroditus Peck, in a 1906 Address on the history of Burlington, “It is said that this little meeting-house was never finished inside, and that the swallows used to make their nests in the rafters and often fly in and out during service.” A new meeting house was built in 1809, near to the site of the first building which, according to Peck, “was removed to Bristol, and used as a cotton-mill. It afterward became the Ingraham clock-case shop, and was destroyed by fire in December, 1904.” The 1809 Congregational Church of Burlington was moved, reduced somewhat in size, and rebuilt in the Greek Revival style at its current location on the Burlington Green in 1836.