Old Indian Meeting House

Old Indian Meeting House
Location Mashpee, Massachusetts
Coordinates 41°37′28″N 70°28′45″W / 41.62444°N 70.47917°W / 41.62444; -70.47917Coordinates: 41°37′28″N 70°28′45″W / 41.62444°N 70.47917°W / 41.62444; -70.47917
Built 1684
Architect Hinckley, Deacon John
Architectural style Colonial, Greek Revival, Italianate
NRHP Reference #

98001383

[1]
Added to NRHP December 3, 1998

The Old Indian Meeting House (also known as the Old Indian Church) is a historic meeting house at 410 Meetinghouse Road in Mashpee, Massachusetts. The meetinghouse is the oldest Native American church in the eastern United States and the oldest church on Cape Cod.[2][3][4]

The church was built in 1684 by Deacon John Hinckley on the site of an earlier Indian meetinghouse built in 1670. It was used by the Wampanoag Native Americans as a Christian church.[1] In 1717 the church was moved from its original location in the town to its current one, and the building was remodeled.[5] The building also served as a school. In the late eighteenth century, a cemetery ("burial ground") was founded on the church grounds.[1]

With almost four centuries of Native American leadership and ministry, the Old Meeting House is a place of historic and spiritual significance to the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.[6] In 1833 it was the site of the famous Mashpee Revolt, when tribal members and their minister, William Apess (Pequot), protested state intrusions on their self-governance, and white settlers' theft of wood from tribal lands. The site was re-dedicated in 1923 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.[1] In 2009, the Mashpee tribe celebrated its reconstruction and formal re-opening.[7]

Old Indian Meeting House c. 1905

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15.
  2. ↑ Rudy Mitchell, "New England's Native Americans," Emmanuel Research Review, Issue No. 32, November 2007
  3. ↑ Genealogy Magazine
  4. ↑ Green, Eugene; Sachse, William; McCaulley, Brian (2006). The Names of Cape Cod. Arcadia Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-933212-84-5.
  5. ↑ Massachusetts:A Guide to Its Places and People, Federal Writers Project,(U.S. History Publishers) pg. 594 ISBN 1-60354-020-2
  6. ↑ Kennedy, Frances (2008). American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook. Houghton Mifflin. p. 39. ISBN 9780395633366.
  7. ↑ Kehrl, Brian (12 December 2009). "Mashpee Old Indian Meetinghouse Reopened". Mashpee Enterprise. Retrieved 10 October 2013.


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