Meeting house

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A meeting house describes a place of public meeting, particularly in the eastern portion of Canada and the United States. A meeting house is often an entirely secular structure in New England towns where they serve as a sort of town or city hall, and are used for public meetings, voting, and town offices.

A meeting house may have a dual purpose as a place of worship and public discourse as in early American Puritan congregations. Congregational churches with their congregationalist system of church governance refer to their buildings as meeting houses and also as mouth-houses to emphasize their use as a place for discourse and discussion. The Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers term their buildings Friends meeting houses. Some Mennonite and Amish groups refer to their churches as meeting houses.

References

Congdon, Herbert Wheaton. Old Vermont Houses 1763-1850. William L. Bauhan: 1940, 1973. ISBN 87233-001-X.
Duffy, John J., et al. Vermont: An Illustrated History. American Historical Press: 2000. ISBN 1-892724-08-1.

Meeting house

References

See also