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Pilgrim Hall Museum: an honorable past, a glorious future! continues |
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| Buckingham also tells how Pilgrim Hall came to be built: | ||
| In 1820, the second Centennial
Celebration of the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, took place at Plymouth;
and on this occasion was founded The Pilgrim’s Society. This was
incorporated by the Legislature of the State, and resolutions were passed
to build a Pilgrim Hall, to be devoted to the annual festivities
accompanying the celebration. In 1824 this edifice was erected… The Pilgrim Hall is a
Doric building, with a portico of four pillars, the edifice being 70 feet
in length by 40 feet in breadth, and 33 feet high. It consists of an area
story, in which is a large school-room for girls, and several requisite
offices. The main story is devoted to the Hall, which is lofty and well
proportioned, lighted on both sides. At its entrance are two ante-rooms,
used for the Library and Museum; and above these two are two drawing
rooms, communicating with the orchestra or gallery, which are used for
refreshments. It was erected in the year 1824, at the expense to the
Pilgrim Society, and cost about 10,000 dollars.
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| Buckingham’s account leaves out
many tantalizing details of a rather lengthy and convoluted process.
As with all well-managed capital projects, the Trustees first came to agreement on the functions that the new building should fulfill. The Trustees minutes of 1822 articulated that the future Pilgrim Hall should be able to accommodate Forefathers Day celebrations on its lower floor, with an assembly room for gatherings on the main floor with ceilings and wall space sufficient to accommodate Sargent’s painting “The Landing of the Pilgrims,” and “suitable room for antiquities which may be collected by the society and for a Library.” (A committee was then established to accumulate books and antiquities for the new museum.) The Trustees envisioned a building 72 feet long and 32 feet wide, made of brick with a slate roof, and hoped that this could be accomplished for $3500 to $4000. Whether the Society’s officers were inspired by their newly acquired antiquities or whether a larger and grander vision arose from discussions with the chosen architect, Alexander Parris (who attained great prominence in 1820 when he designed St. Paul’s Episcopal Church opposite Boston Common but is today better known as the architect of Boston’s Quincy Market), we shall probably never know. No further details are recorded of the discussions of the Trustees. By the meeting of May 31, 1824, however, the proposed Pilgrim Hall was being described not simply as a handsome meeting place but as a “monumental building.” This resulting building was to be made not of the expected brick, but of granite, in the bold new “Greek Revival” architectural style. Visitors would enter through a classical portico with 4 Doric columns. Not only were the architectural plans bold – so was the financing! Although a strongly conservative organization, the Society accepted a design costing $10,000 - so expensive that the building had to be done in two phases. Job and Abner Taylor of Plymouth were selected as builders and, on September 1, 1824, the cornerstone was laid. Paid for by private subscription and with considerable financing, Pilgrim Hall’s first phase was a simple box (no columns yet!), measuring seventy by forty feet with a peaked roof, with 10-foot ceilings on the lower floor and 23-foot ceilings on the main floor. Enough of the building was finished by the end of 1824 that the Hall could be declared publicly “open.” On December 17, 1824, “a very large number of the Members of the Society & others met for the first time in Pilgrim Hall.” |
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Updated 14 July, 1998
