"Weymouth Meeting House took fire about half an hour after 10 o'clock at night and burnt to the ground in abt 2 hours."
This is all Parson Smith has to say about it, but the Boston Post-Boy of April 29th tells us that:
"Last Tuesday Night the old Meeting-house in Weymouth was burnt to the Ground: and three Barrels of Gunpowder, the Town-Stock, being in the Loft, blew up with a great noise. 'Tis uncertain by what Means the Fire happen'd."
Paul Torrey, the town poet, says of it:
Our powder stock, kept under lock,
With flints and bullets were
By dismal blast soon swiftly cast
Into the open air.
The poem hints at incendiaries.
I'm satisfied they do reside
Somewhere within the town:
Therefore, no doubt, you'll find them out,
By searching up and down.
On trial them we will condemn,
The sentence we will give:
Them execute without dispute,
Not being fit to live.
This was a heavy blow to minister and congregation, in fact to the whole community; for the meeting-house was the centre and core of the village life.
Meeting-house: (Cotton Mather found "no just ground in Scripture to apply such a trope as 'church' to a home for public assembly.") Sabbath, or more often Lord's Day: these are the Puritan names, which happily we have not yet wholly lost. The early meeting-houses were very small; that of Haverhill was only twenty-six feet long and twenty wide. They were oftenest set on a hilltop, partly as a landmark, partly as a lookout in case of prowling Indians. The building or "raising" of a meeting-house was a great event in the community. Every citizen was obliged by law to share in the work or the expense. Every man must give a certain amount of "nayles." Contributions were levied for lumber, for labor of horses and men, and for "Rhum and Cacks" to regale the workers. "When the Medford people built their second meeting-house, they provided for the workmen and bystanders, five barrels of rum, one barrel of good brown sugar, a box of fine lemons, and two loaves of sugar. As a natural consequence, two-thirds of the frame fell, and many were injured. In Northampton, in 1738, ten gallons of rum were bought for £8 'to raise the meeting-house'—and the village doctor got '£3 for setting his bone Jonathan Strong, and £3 10s. for setting Ebenezer Burt's thy' which had somehow through the rum or the raising, both gotten broken."[1] Finally it was realized that rum and "raising" did not go well together, and the workmen had to wait till night for their liquor.