{"nrhp_refnum":"66000777","name":"Old Ship Meetinghouse","other_names":["Old Ship Church"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hingham","county":"Plymouth County","state":"MA","lat":42.24110489150004,"lon":-70.88678307035892,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1966-10-15","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1960-10-09","areas_of_significance":["Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A large square, two-story wooden meetinghouse on Main Street in Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, begun in 1681 and enlarged in 1729 and 1755. It was built by ship's carpenters for the First Parish.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it the only surviving example of a traditional seventeenth-century New England Puritan meetinghouse, and probably the oldest English church in continuous use in America. Its plain wooden form reflects the Puritan rejection of Anglican Gothic architecture. Its exposed curved roof trusses, which resemble an inverted ship's hull, gave it its name.","narrative":"Old Ship Church is a large, square, two-story wooden meetinghouse on Main Street in Hingham, Massachusetts. Begun in 1681 at a cost of 430 English pounds raised by taxing the congregation, it was widened by 14 feet in 1729 and expanded again on the opposite side in 1755. Ship's carpenters built it, and its roof is carried by curved oak trusses that look like the inverted framework of a ship's hull, which gave the building its name. Over the years it gained box pews, a gallery on three sides, sash windows, two porches with Georgian detail and a flat ceiling that hid the roof framing. A restoration in 1930, supervised by Boston architect Edgar T. P. Walker, removed most nineteenth-century alterations and brought back the trusses and the original pulpit. The nomination describes it as the only surviving traditional seventeenth-century New England Puritan meetinghouse and probably the oldest English church in continuous use in America. It remains an active church.","period_of_significance":"1700-1799","architect_builder":"Built by ship's carpenters; 1930 restoration supervised by Boston architect Edgar T. P. Walker","architectural_style":"Puritan meetinghouse (17th-century New England), with Georgian detail in later porches","criteria":[],"status_note":"Active church, well maintained, in excellent condition; restored in 1930.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 01:59:20.58656-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/17/7938/63793817/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/66000777_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000777/a753d98dab-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000777/a753d98dab-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Timothy Valentine","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OldShipChurchExterior.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Timothy Valentine</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OldShipChurchExterior.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"90001728","name":"Lincoln Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/massachusetts/lincoln-historic-district-90001728/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793817","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Ship_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7084968"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/plymouth-county/old-ship-meetinghouse-66000777/"}