Over the last few years, I’ve gotten to know better the Congregational Church in North Hadley; it’s a special place that borders Franklin County and a beautiful section of what I will call Hadley proper, further south.
Beauty is subjective to be sure, but North Hadley stands out. Notice, for example, the boat dock for Lake Warner (also called the North Hadley Pond), representing today what remains from the edges of massive and very ancient Lake Hitchcock. The current church was built on the edge of the lake in 1831-1834, designed by Captain Issac Damon of Northampton.
I read that North Hadley was a place where local Indigenous peoples had some success in the contact period in limiting the expansion of colonial settlement northwards. That means that when the Porter Phelps Huntington family built their homestead and Forty Acres Farm by the river in 1752, it was possibly at the northernmost end of Hadley proper.
I like to imagine this earlier time in history by taking a walk, climbing through young sassafras trees, into the Mount Warner Reservation. Hopefully you will also find your way to the Sugar Shack and the wonderful cider farm (both on Route 47) or find time to explore villages within North Hadley itself, like Plainville (near the University of Massachusetts Farm) and Russellville, on the border with Sunderland. In the center of what is still a visibly coherent late 18th and 19th classic New England village center is the Congregational Church.
I like this religious place a whole lot. Within the pews, during a Sunday service, you can
find the treasurer, a custodian, readers from the lectionary, an usher, a bell ringer, a
preacher, a couple of willing home cooks for coffee hour, and an organist-choral
director: all volunteers, doing what is usually called “God’s business” as well as being “a
living sanctuary for you.”
Perhaps it is no accident that congregants that day I visited numbered 12, echoing the first followers of Jesus, doing the things that were needed to grow the church. The kids in the congregation – two that day – were lovingly cared for and attended to. I paid close attention as there are usually three children at our services and growing this part of our church communities is crucial to our relevance going forward. For those of you remembering Robert Putnam’s book, “Bowling Alone” – now 25 years old – the congregation here is a good example of how a place with a dense network of social capital can be healthier and more able to re-weave the social fabric – indeed the beautiful messiness – of our lives.
Most churches that I have visited or worshipped in around here need a secondary
source of income and attendance to support the local communities they are a part of. I
see this at places like Charlemont Federated Church who host the Mohawk Trail
concerts or the ingenious arrangement in Florence where the Congregational Church is
also home to the reform temple, Beit Ahavah, and Bombyx Center for Equity and the
Arts. It is not lost on me that in fact these two religious buildings all share similar
stained-glass windows.
North Hadley Congregational Church also offers their space for seasonal concerts. The local choral group High Definition offers an end of year concert there in the spring and this year, there was also an opportunity to support the work locally of The Friends of Lake Warner and the Mill River. They hosted a May concert with jazz vocalist and pianist Karrin Allyson (and her trio) as well. Friends of Lake Warner is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the preservation, improvement and responsible use of the Mill River and Lake Warner in Hadley. The church contains a Johnson organ, making it a favorite place for musicians from all around the Valley, such as musician and composer, Jerry Noble. The other traditional offering for the church is the annual ham and asparagus supper offered at the time of the year when Hadley grass is at its most abundant.
The church has been blessed to have Chris White as music director these past five years. He is a UMass professor of music, and he plays the organ when this works with the rotation. He has just published a book on AI and music.
For more information, visit northhadleycongregationalchurch.org.
Hetty Startup is a trustee at Ashfield Congregational Church/UCC, and social media admin for Interfaith Council of Franklin County.