East Monkton Church Association history

After the Civil War ended, East Monkton was an up-and-coming hamlet within the larger town of Monkton, Vermont, in the Champlain Valley. Mining for iron ore, kaolin clay, and yellow ochre pigment had drawn workers to this small farming community after the minerals' discovery in the late 18th century. Unlike Monkton's other small villages, though, East Monkton's growing population had no meeting place or house of worship. So residents raised funds to build a 46-foot by 35-foot, timber frame, late Greek Revival style church that could seat 250 people, to serve the popular Methodist Episcopal denomination. Construction was finished at 405 Church Road in 1867, and the community celebrated with a dedication service that included a double wedding.

In the late 1860s and the 1870s, professional musicians instructed local children in vocal music performance at the church, followed by community concerts. In winter 1877, at a series of lyceums, the church was filled to overflowing for the music, debate, recitations, and orations, according to a newspaper article ("East Monkton," Enterprise and Vermonter of Vergennes, March 16, 1877, 3). Many other public events at the church in the late 19th century included a harvest home festival concert, a stereopticon show, and box, basket, or ice cream socials (or “sociables”).

Sabbath schools, later known as Sunday schools, were offered. Other religious church functions were not as frequent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as they became later. Weddings and funerals were often at home, or occasionally in the Monkton Boro parsonage, the home of the minister who served all the Methodist churches in Monkton. In the 1910s, the growing trend was for funerals to be held at the church. Children were baptized there from time to time. The church was sometimes the location for Methodist Episcopal Church business: quarterly conferences.

The East Monkton Church's founding coincided with a dramatic upturn in post-Civil War evangelistic revivalism in some American Protestant denominations, including Methodism. Revival meetings and services were held at this church beginning in 1877, and then almost every year from 1884 to the end of the century. These assemblies became sporadic and then ended in the early 20th century.

Another nationwide social trend with religious connections reached the East Monkton Church: temperance and prohibition. The state president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union spoke there and organized a local group in 1902, shortly before the state legislature passed a local option law, ending statewide prohibition. But W.C.T.U. and Vermont Anti-Saloon League activism returned to the church occasionally, into the early 1930s.

Across the nation, women were increasingly active in their communities, forming organizations and taking leadership roles. In 1920 the Loyal Workers, the church's newly formed women's group, supervised a modification of the church’s original interior design. They enlarged the small vestibule and “chair loft” (choir loft or balcony) above it. Although the church did not have plumbing or electricity, the expansion facilitated cooking for large public dinners at one end of the much wider vestibule, using a portable kerosene stove and kerosene oven. Seating was in the approximately 33-foot by 14-foot dining area above.

Organized by the Loyal Workers, fashionable and inexpensive oyster suppers brought crowds of as many as 150 people to the little church in East Monkton. These events, as well as socials, concerts, and plays, raised funds to finance church repairs, remodeling, parsonage repairs, and supplementary support for the pastor for at least three decades. Other organizations, such as the East Monkton Cemetery Association and the Happy Sisters Sunshine Club, a charitable women’s group, also used the church for meetings and public fundraising events. As a result, the church remained a vital part of the community at a time when other churches were closing because local populations had been declining.

The town of Monkton's population had dropped more than 20 percent from 1900 to 1910. Rural Vermonters were migrating to cities in and out of state, and to midwestern farms. East Monkton's once prosperous Kaolin Works suddenly went bankrupt and was sold at auction in 1902. Methodist church officials lamented "the steady exodus of the choicest young people to the cities." (Minutes of the Troy Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Saratoga Springs, New York, April 15-20, 1903, 88). Monkton's churches began a process of consolidating or folding.

The last minister was appointed to serve Monkton's Methodist churches in 1937. During the late 1930s and the 1940s, worship services and Sunday school classes became less frequent, but in the post-World War II years, the church was rededicated and redecorated. Funerals were still held there, and the Friends Methodist Church at Monkton Ridge came to East Monkton for summer services.

As the church's centennial approached, the building had been closed for several years, and was "in a state of neglect," according to a Burlington Free Press article ("100th Anniversary of East Monkton Church Celebrated," Burlington Free Press, August 16, 1966, 16). Volunteers prepared the church to again hold services. The centennial was celebrated with a special chorus and a historical review. Inspired by the upcoming United States Bicentennial, an association of local citizens formed in the late 1960s to raise funds and preserve and repair the historic church, including repainting, replacing the roof and entrance steps, and installing electric wiring and ceiling fans.

A Robert Sincerbeaux Fund grant from the Preservation Trust of Vermont supported a conditions assessment by Eliot Lothrop, Building Heritage LLC, in 2005. The East Monkton Church Association incorporated as an educational, social, and cultural nonprofit in 2006, and obtained 501(c)(3) tax exempt status the following year. Another Sincerbeaux grant from the Preservation Trust of Vermont helped fund a 2017 engineering and timber frame assessment by Janet Kane, JkStructural Designs, and Jan Lewandoski, Restoration & Traditional Building.

Preservation projects from 2003 to the present have included repair of the bell tower, roof replacement, reed organ restoration, floor sill replacement, window repair and restoration, repainting, electrical work, landscape grading, placement of stones around foundation, installation of more lighting, removal of bricks from the chimney stub, vestibule ceiling restoration, entrance to chair loft restoration, exterior trim repair, and many more. A Preservation Trust of Vermont 1772 Foundation grant helped fund exterior repainting in 2021.

In addition to grants, the association has received financial donations from many individuals and a major corporation. It has also raised funds annually with cultural, social, and educational events such as concerts, films, lectures, book discussions, workshops, an art show and sale, a fiber arts exhibit, a National Register open house, a genealogy workshop, town-wide yard sales, Christmas celebrations and caroling, the church's 150th birthday party, and numerous Monkton Museum & Historical Society meetings and presentations. The church has been the site of several recent weddings, a memorial service, a baptism, and a vigil. The Monkton Friends Methodist Church of Monkton Ridge still holds services there for a month every summer.

In 2020 the association purchased the church property from the Vermont District, New England Conference, United Methodist Church. The East Monkton Church continues to play an important social and cultural role in the community.

For more about the church's history and architecture, please see:

*our National Register of Historic Places listing http://accdservices.vermont.gov/ORCDocs/Monkton_National%20Register_Nomination%20Form_96321-116.pdf

*pages 14-16 of East Monkton, Vermont: A History of Its Land and People by Lauren Parren, Candace Layn Polzella, and Cynthia Walcott. The book, published in 2023, can be read from the Monkton Museum & Historical Society website (https://www.monktonhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/East_Monkton_History.pdf) or purchased from the Monkton town clerk during business hours.