History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654;

1737] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 71
thankful. On Friday, the 5"' day of May, 1738, we pulled down the
old meeting house, without hurt to any man, or to the new house."
Accidents. Notwithstanding the amount of intoxicants
consumed, the laborious task of raising the
huge frame was accomplished without accident. But during
the following year, two persons were injured, while at
work on the building. Jonathan Strong was fjaid £3 for
^'setting his bone, broken while working at y" meeting
house," and £3.10 was paid to "y*" Ebenezer Burt's thy."
bonesetter for setting
The Spire, Pews At the auuual town-mceting in 173^, the
and Seats. buildiug Committee reported progress and
were discharged. A vote to complete the
striicture during the year immediately followed, and a new
committee was chosen to carry on the work. The question
of building a spire or steeple had not been previously set-
tled, and the matter was entrusted to the discretion of this
committee, with instructions to " advise with some Workmen
with Respect to the Height, manner and method of
Building the Same." It was also " voted that in the meeting
House now a Building, there Shall be Pews made
round the meeting House and only Seats on both Sides of
the Alley." Accordingly pews were placed along the outer
walls on all sides of the building. The "alley," — "broad
a,lley," as it is elsewhere called—or broad aisle, extended
through the middle of the audience room, from the south
door (there were doors on three sides of the edifice) to the
pulpit. Twenty-five wall pews were built on the ground
floor, and these seem to have been all the pews authorized
by the above vote. But the earliest seating plan extant,
very probably the first one ever made, contains another
tier of twelve pews along three sides of the narrow aisle
which gave access to the wall pews. These pews were undoubtedly
put in when the house was built, and the vote
prescribing " only seats on both sides of the alley," was
construed to mean that all other parts of the house should
be provided with pews. This view is confirmed by the fact
that there remains no record of the addition of any pews
till 1762, when five were constructed, probably in the gallery.
The plan referred to shows a tier of wall pews,