Mendon Town Hall

    The town hall was built in 1840 on land provided by Silas Dudley, a prosperous gentleman
    farmer.  Mr. Dudley retained rights to the second floor, and he named it Harrison Hall when
    President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia shortly after his inauguration.  The town
    owned the first floor and used it as a school.  In 1849, the town purchased the entire building and
    renamed it Mendon Town Hall.  The second floor became Mendon High School from 1868 to
    1903.  It was also used for town meetings and civic and cultural events.  Since 1903, the building
    has served Mendon citizens in a variety of ways, including a place for town offices of elected and
    appointed officials.

    Mendon Town Hall is actually Mendon center’s fifth meetinghouse.  Many historic events preceded
    the construction of our existing cornerstone of town government.  The first structure was built in
    1668, about one hundred fifty yards to the north, but it was burned to the ground in February
    1676, during the King Philip War.  This was a devastating blow to Mendon’s first settlers, who had
    carved a new frontier settlement in the Nipmuc Indian land of Squinshepauge.  The second and
    third were constructed on the same site in 1680 and 1690, but were soon inadequate due to town
    growth.  The fourth meetinghouse was built in the 1730’s at the north end of the village cemetery,
    after much bickering and re-voting.  After one hundred years, a new meetinghouse was needed,
    and a central location was desired for the newly combined school districts to educate the town’s
    children under one roof.  The days of the neighborhood school district were over.  School
    Committeeman Silas Dudley was able to solve both problems.

    The first four meetinghouses were used for town meetings and religious services, as were
    permitted under Puritanical laws.  Mr. Dudley’s 1840 building was not constructed for religious
    purposes, as twenty years earlier, the Unitarian Church had been built.  Mendon accepted the
    concept of separation of church and state.

    Another unique aspect of the town hall was that it was the last Mendon public building to be
    constructed before the town’s south parish broke away to form an independent town (1845).  
    Blackstone, a highly industrial factory and mill section along the Blackstone River, had generated
    large sums of tax dollars for Mendon’s treasury.  The town was able to afford its portion of the new
    building due to the reluctant generosity of its southern parish.  The independence of Blackstone
    impacted Mendon’s economy and population, but its financial contributions before its departure
    enabled the town to come up with its share to make the concept of a town hall and a central
    school a reality.

    Richard Grady
    Mendon, MA

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