National Register of Historic Places

Grace United Methodist Church

Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire
Listed
March 7, 1985
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
85000476

About this property

Grace United Methodist Church is a former Methodist Church building at 34 Court Street in Keene, New Hampshire. Built in 1869, it was designed by architect Shepard S. Woodcock, and is one of the largest churches in southwestern New Hampshire. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Its congregation moved in 2009 and was disbanded in 2016. Since 2018 the church has been owned by a marketing agency. The former Grace United Methodist Church is in downtown Keene, a short way north of Central Square on the west side of Court Street. It is a large brick building with Gothic Revival styling. It has a gabled roof, with buttressing along the sides and at the corners. A tower with a tall spire rises from the right front corner, with a polychrome slate finish. There are three entrances on the main facade, one in the tower, one at the center below the main gable, and one to the left of a buttressed turret. The interior is two stories, with classrooms, vestry, and office spaces on the ground floor, and the main sanctuary on the second floor. The Grace congregation was founded in 1832, and built its first house of worship in 1852. This church was built in 1868-69, to a design by Shepard S. Woodcock, a prolific regional architect working out of Boston, Massachusetts. It was built at the high cost of $40,000, beyond the means of its parishioners to afford; the congregation was in debt until 1896. Originally roofed in polychrome slate (similar to what appears on the spire), the roof was replaced after the 1938 New England Hurricane. Due to dwindling enrollment, the Methodist congregation moved to rent smaller quarters in the Odd Fellows Hall on Marlboro Street, and was formally disbanded in 2016. The historic church's Steer and Turner organ was removed and sold to a German Catholic church. The building was purchased in 2018 by the owner of a local digital marketing agency. National Register of Historic Places listings in Cheshire County, New Hampshire

Location

34 Court St.
Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire
42.93454, -72.28383

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Joslin-Faulkner-Putnam House
Industrial
0.1 mi
Colony House
Early Republic
0.1 mi
Cheshire County Courthouse
Industrial
0.2 mi
Faulkner & Colony Woolen Mill
Early Republic
0.2 mi
Colony's Block
Industrial
0.3 mi

Questions about this property

When was Grace United Methodist Church listed on the National Register?

Grace United Methodist Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 7, 1985.

What type of historic resource is Grace United Methodist Church?

Grace United Methodist Church is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Grace United Methodist Church?

The period of significance for Grace United Methodist Church is recorded as the industrial era.

Can I research the history near Grace United Methodist Church?

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