First encounters with the Old Brick Church

The story of the Village landmark’s restoration

BY MARK HUTCHINS Special to the Observer

In the late 1950’s, my family lived in the New North End of Burlington. It was a wonderful place and time to grow up. Everything was new.

We enjoyed a new school within walking distance of our home. Every house around was newly built and they were filled with young families. The beach at Lake Champlain was within easy bicycle distance, as was a friendly local market.

The landscape was partially old forest, which provided infinite opportunities for adventures. The whole country felt optimistic and crime was nearly non-existent. At the age of 8, I could hop on a local city bus bound for my music lessons in downtown Burlington, and my parents had no concerns I would return on schedule.

My grandparents in those pre-Interstate days lived in central Vermont in the Town of Morrisville. We made numerous trips there, and my father, a native Vermonter who loved to drive, had several options for routes to Morrisville, some perhaps a little longer. He liked to vary the journey as much as possible.

Early on I became familiar with the various routes as well as many landmarks that helped me time the trip. We would pass a prominent barn or bridge and I knew where we were and how much longer the journey would take.

The ride through Burlington and South

Burlington, then through Williston and eastward on Route 2 to Waterbury, then up through Stowe to Morrisville, was my favorite from an early age. Among my earliest memories are recognizing the collection of brick buildings that clustered in the center of Williston Village and the elaborate white spire of the Williston Federated Church as one approached or departed the Village at the east end. I did not realize, of course, what these buildings were, but somehow they made an impression on a very young boy — an impression that I would develop into a passion for architecture and, particularly, vintage architecture.

In 1961, my father decided to move our family from Burlington for more open space. He was a very fine carpenter and had decided to build his own house. Accordingly, he purchased property on Route 2A in Williston. He arranged for a giant mobile home to be set up for our family to live in for the year it would take him to construct the house.

I loved all the new fields and forests to explore and made friends with new neighbors quickly. We joined the Federated Church, which excited me because I had passed by it so often and admired the ornate steeple.

I enrolled at Williston Central School as an eighth-grader in the fall of 1962. In those days, Williston Central School was basically two wings connected by an auditorium. It was quite modern and had an almost cozy feel to it. Most of the students were transported by bus from all over town, and it was an interesting mix of farm kids and the growing population of Burlington professionals who had moved away from the city for the same reasons my father did. We were a happy school in the sense that I do not remember any major issues of discipline or strife.

The eighth-grade classrooms occupied the south side of the west wing, and each classroom looked slightly uphill toward Route 2. Every day, no matter which classroom I was in, I sat near the big windows and could distract my attention easily with what might be happening outside.

My daily panorama included the brick civic buildings I had admired for years driving by, including the town’s library, Town Hall, the closed former Universalist church and the mysterious, shuttered, derelict-looking former Congregational church that was just to the east of the school, facing the other landmarks across the highway.

We had no idea who the church belonged to but did know it was probably illegal to enter without some kind of permission.

I began to develop an intense curiosity about this particular structure. I gazed at it intently and easily memorized every feature, from its faded gray-white belfry to its rotting shutters that were tightly closed but catching a glimmer of reflected light from the glass behind them.

No matter what the weather, the old building stood silent and brooding under the nearby trees. In winter, it became much more appealing as the sunlight glowed off