eeting-house in the centre of the town, or in the nearest
convenientest place thereto." This double-barrelled superlativeness
shows that the spirit of the people was by no means cast down by the
fruitless struggle of five years. At this meeting a committee was
appointed to plan a new house. Oct. 10, this committee reported to the
town "to build a house sixty by forty-six feet, with a porch at each end
twelve by eleven feet, with stairs into the galleries." There were to be
forty-six pews on the ground floor, and twenty-five in the galleries, to
be sold to the highest bidders, and three years were to be allowed in
which to build the house. This report was accepted at a meeting held
Nov. 14, 1791. A committee was also chosen to clear a site upon the land
purchased of Thomas Boynton and build the house. Dec. 27, 1791, the town
with its usual consistency voted "to dismiss the committee chosen to
build a new meeting-house from further service." Thus the matter again
stood as at the beginning.

For nearly three years thereafter the pot continued to boil, but nothing
more was done about church affairs in town meeting, except that on May
17, 1793, the people showed their obstinacy by refusing "to repair the
meeting-house windows, and to paint the outside of the meeting-house."

Sept. 3, 1794, operations were again renewed by voting "to erect a
meeting-house in the centre of the town, or in the nearest convenientest
place thereto, to accommodate the inhabitants thereof for divine
worship." Three disinterested individuals, Joseph Stearns and David
Kilburn of Lunenburg, and Benjamin Kimball of Harvard, were chosen by
ballot as a committee to discover that much-to-be-desired spot, "the
nearest convenientest place to the centre." They found the centre to be
a little less than a quarter of a mile north-east of the pound, but
considered the most eligible location for the house to be about a half a
mile south of this point, which would have placed it near the present
junction of Main and River Streets. Oct. 21 a meeting was called to
hear their report and it was rejected 36 to 29. So the opinions of
interested and disinterested persons seem to have been considered of
about equal value--as good for nothing.

Nov. 21, 1794, a motion "to place the meeting-house on the spot where
the committee out of town proposed" was negatived, forty-eight to
forty-five. A committee was then appointed to select a suitable place.
Dec. 1 this committee r