Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, built in 1681 for a congregation founded in 1635, is the only surviving seventeenth-century Puritan meetinghouse in the United States and the oldest church building in continuous ecclesiastical use by its parish. Its most famous feature is an open hammerbeam timber roof, rooted in English Gothic traditions, that makes the ceiling resemble an inverted ship’s hull. Born from the Puritan community led by Rev. Peter Hobart, the building replaced an earlier log meetinghouse after local debate. Later interior alterations were reversed by a 1930 restoration, and the site remains tied to Hingham’s early settlers through its burying ground and continuing congregation.

Hingham, Massachusetts · USA