Windham town
quickly voted that its meeting-house be "coloured something like the
Pomfret meeting-house." Killingly soon ordered that the "cullering of the
body of our meeting-house should be like the Pomfret meeting-house, and the
Roff shal be cullered Read." Brooklyn church then, in 1762, ordered that
the outside of its meeting-house be "culered" in the approved fashion.
The body of the house was painted a bright orange; the doors and "bottom
boards" a warm chocolate color; the "window-jets," corner-boards, and
weather-boards white. What a bright nosegay of color! As a crowning glory
Brooklyn people put up an "Eleclarick Rod" on the gorgeous edifice, and
proudly boasted that--Brooklyn meeting-house was the "newest biggest and
yallowest" in the county. One old writer, however, spoke scornfully of the
spirit of envious emulation, extravagance, and bad taste that spread and
prevailed from the example of the foolish and useless "colouring" of the
Pomfret meeting-house.
Within the meeting-house all was simple enough: raftered walls, sanded
floors, rows of benches, a few pews, and the pulpit, or the "scaffold,"
as John Cotton called it. The bare rafters were often profusely hung with
dusty spiders' webs, and were the home also of countless swallows, that
flew in and out of the open bell-turret. Sometimes, too, mischievous
squirrels, attracted by the corn in the meeting-house loft, made their
homes in the sanctuary; and they were so prolific and so omnivorous that
the Bible and the pulpit cushions were not safe from their nibbling
attacks.
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