Sacred Spaces of New England

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Completed in 1813 under the leadership of local craftsman William Rhodes, the Federal style Round Church is a sixteen-sided meetinghouse that was built to serve the community as a meeting place and a church for the area’s five Protestant congregations. Nevertheless, shortly after the building was constructed, several of the individual congregations built their own churches and the structure reverted to the Town of Richmond to become exclusively a meetinghouse beginning in 1880. In 1973, the Round Church closed due to safety concerns. As a result, the Richmond Historical Society was formed and with the generosity of the community’s time and money as well as its ability to secure grants, the Round Church remains today—serving as a testament to the now rare traditional New England sixteen-sided meetinghouse.