By Carlton D. Hunt, Ph.D.
Bridgewater’s Town House, aka Town Hall, was constructed in 1843 for Town Meetings, cultural functions, and probably municipal administration although this function is not expressly stated in the Town records for nearly eight decades.
The building, especially the upper hall, generated revenue by hosting 20 to 40+ events each year. These included entertainment, organization meetings, and various society/club meetings. Each of these activities was relevant to the Town’s cultural experience in the 19th and 20th centuries. From its inception, the building was managed
by a three-member Town House Committee. This ended in 1915 when the building was renovated for Town Offices. Handwritten Town meeting records and published Annual Town Reports, begun in 1847, document revenue from rental of the House, mostly the “upper hall”.
This revenue funded care, maintenance, and repairs in the 1800s. Building upgrades in its first 80 years capture the major technological advances of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, lighting progressed from kerosene and oil (likely whale) to gas and then electricity. Sanitation was addressed in the late 1880s and early 1900s with construction of a cesspool (1888) and tying into the Town’s developing sewer system and installation of ”modern toilets” in 1915. Upgrades in heating reflect the available choices of the time: wood, coal, fuel oil, and gas. An early use of the telephone (1887) is noted in the record.
The 19th century Town House Committee’s annual compilation of monthly uses establishes the Town House’s historic cultural value and its development as the seat of Bridgewater’s Town Government. The latter was solidified in 1915 when the Town voted to renovate the first floor for Town offices after which hall rental revenue
which peaked at ~$1,100 in 1913 fell by 1935 below that of the Town House’s first 20 years of existence.
Historic use of the Town House as cultural center can be characterized as learning (e.g., readings, lectures, conventions), performance and entertainment (bands, concerts, operetta, dramatics, theater, such as Gen. Thom Thumb and wife), and society get-togethers (dances, festivals, fairs, and exhibits). The Town House was unoccupied from 2016 to now, its use as Town offices being abandoned due to renovations and repurposing of the Academy Building. In 2020, the Town’s Cultural Commission won a grant to study the potential reuse of the building.
The Town Hall cultural reuse feasibility report Findings and Recommendations to the Town of Bridgewater MA in the Adaptive Reuse of Old Town Hall published in 2021 states the building “can be effectively used as a cultural center that includes exhibit, retail, learning, and performance”. These are consistent with the Town House’s historic cultural function which is as important today as in the 1800s.
Full 39 page report :Bridgewater-Town-House Development History and Utilization April-21-2023
