Meeting House

Take a pew in this replica of the Mountjoy Presbyterian Church, which is located at a crossroads only a few miles away. It dates from the 1700s, and is where Thomas Mellon worshipped as a boy. You can imagine the minister delivering his sermon from the pulpit, his voice amplified by the sounding board above.

Thomas Mellon remembered a visit with his father, and wrote about it in his memoirs. He refers to the pew where he sat and the little round pulpit from which Mr McClintock delivered his lengthy sermons.

“There it was a square box with a hinged door, a narrow board seat and very high back. I well-remembered that the backs of the pews were so much higher than my head that I could not see over. And there too about half way up on the opposite wall still remained the little round pulpit with a sounding board some six or eight feet above it. Eight extremely narrow winding steps led up to this sacred desk of a place. The floor was flagstone and the pews and pulpit of hand worked deal boards, a species of yellow pine”.