History of the Old Town Hall

That Enfield outside of Thompsonville was still very rural is evident in this circa-1918 photo of the Old Town Hall. Corn was planted right up to the building. The Old Town Hall was serving as a fire station when this photo was taken, as the “Enfield Fire Dept” sign is visible over the left-hand doors.

This photo of the Old Town Hall probably dates to shortly after the 1923 conversion to a community house. There is a fancy new fence and new doors dress up the outside of the building. The fire station sign is gone. It is hard to tell if the trolley tracks that ran in front of the Old Town Hall are still in use, or even still there. The Old Town Hall was a trolley stop, but the last trolley ran in 1926 and the tracks were removed.

The first priority of restoration of the Old Town Hall was to make the building structurally safe and keep it that way. The building sat on a foundation made in places of fieldstone and in others of brick. There was no basement, only a dirt crawl space. A full basement was constructed by supporting the fragile building on cribbing while the new basement was dug beneath it and concrete poured. At the same time, rotted sills and beams were replaced and a steel frame installed under the building. Outside, damaged clapboards were replaced, window sashes were rebuilt with antique glass, and new roofing was installed, all to protect the structure and the interior that was about to be restored.

With the exterior of the building repaired and water tight, interior restoration of the Old Town Hall began. Interior framing was upgraded to support second floor activities and exhibits and the visitors they might attract. Rotten floors were replaced, damaged walls were repaired and everything was painted. Utilities dating back to the 1920s and before - plumbing, heating, lighting, etc - were replaced with modern systems. Finally, on September 27, 1980, the building was opened to the public for the first time in decades.

The Old Town Hall was used as a fire station in the early 1900s, as seen in this circa-1917 photograph. When not in use, the fire truck was parked inside the Old Town Hall along the left (south) side. You can see light shining in through the south-facing windows in the photograph. Today, besides photographs like this one, the only evidence of the Old Town Hall’s days as a fire station is the hose tower - closed off now to meet fire code (how ironic!) - that extends from the first floor to the attic. Before the invention of modern synthetic rubber, fire hoses were hung inside hose towers to drain and dry to prevent the canvas and natural rubber fire hoses from rotting.

In 1923, the Enfield Town Hall Community Association and the Penelope Terry Abbey Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution renovated the deteriorating Old Town Hall and opened it as a community house. The first floor featured a pool table, skee ball, and other games, a library, a kitchen capable of serving 150 people, and a ticket booth, cloak room, and rest rooms to support activities on the second floor, which had room for dining and dancing, and a stage for plays and musical productions. Advertisements and other documents hint that the stage existed well before the 1920s, going back at least to the 1880s and possibly even to when the building was converted to a town hall about 1848-49, but that it was upgraded for the 1923 opening.

No images of the Old Town Hall exist from when it was the third meetinghouse of the First Ecclesiastical Society. Photography was still a very new technology when the building was converted to a town hall and no contemporary drawings or paintings have ever been found. But it is possible to guess at the appearance from records and writings from the time, as well as structural evidence found while restoring the building. The entrance was in the center of the south side of the building and there was likely some type of bell tower on the east end where the front portico is now.

After years of neglect the Old Town Hall was condemned as unsafe in 1964. Fortunately, people who wanted to save the historic structure were able to prevent its demolition until enough resources were in place for the Enfield Historical Society to begin an eight-year restoration in 1972.