Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.3 | The History Cooperative

The Meetinghouse Tragedy: An Episode in the Life of a New England Town. By Charles E. Clark. (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998. xviii, 152 pp. Paper, $14.95, isbn 0-87451-872-5.)

On a clear September day in 1773, hundreds of men, women, and children gathered in Wilton, New Hampshire, for the raising of the frame of the town's new meetinghouse. The meetinghouse was to be 60 feet by 45 feet at the base and 42 feet high at the ridgepole. It required the labor of 120 able-bodied men (acting under the supervision of a master builder) and the logistical support of the community as a whole to raise a frame that large. The raisers had impressive tools at their disposal: derricks, blocks and tackle, and pike poles. They relied most, however, on their own strength and experience, as they hoisted the massive framing timbers and perched themselves higher and higher on the rising structure. 1

While the third or fourth rafter was being secured, the log that braced the beam on which the rafterers stood gave way. In an instant, fifty-three men fell 27 feet or more to the floor below, together with their sharp-edged tools and tons of timbers. All were seriously injured. Five died, and two more were crippled for life. . . .

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