Meetinghouse
Prior to the mid-1700’s the area around Rupert was inhabited by indigenous men and women for 12,000 years. Throughout the territory the historically competitive tribes of Abenaki and Mohawk were active in area at the time of European immigration.
During the 1600’s French colonists claimed the territory as part of the colony of New France. English settlers arriving on the Atlantic claimed the land. Conflict ensued culminating in the Seven Years' War (The French and Indian War) which forced the French from the area in 1763 (France ceded all claims on territory east of the Mississippi to Great Britain at that time.)
The provincial government of New York sold land grants to settlers in the Rupert region, which conflicted with earlier grants from the government of New Hampshire.
The local militia, called the Green Mountain Boys protected the interests of the already established New Hampshire Land Grant settlers who were already in the area against the newly arrived settlers with land titles granted by New York. Ultimately, a group of settlers with New Hampshire land grant titles established in 1777 established the Vermont Republic as an independent state during the American Revolutionary War.
It was during the decades from the 1760’s to 1790’s that the rich history of Rupert was forged.
One of the early historical characters who came to the area was Samson Occom who was born in a wigwam on Mohegan land in 1723. Occom was a direct descendant of Uncas the Grand Sachem (chief) of the Mohegans.
Occom had numerous claims to fame. He was an eloquent teacher and spiritual leader, he was one of the first ordained congregational Christian ministers in America, and he formed the New England Indian School. He traveled to England and raised eleven thousand pounds from wealthy patrons, including the Earl of Dartmouth, after who the Indian school was later named.
Occom accepted the invitation to resettle with the New York Oneida’s. On his trip north he spent time in the Rupert area where he joined together indigenous people and new settlers to the area establishing the groundwork for the establishment of what in now the Congregational Church of Rupert, VT and it’s historic 1786 Meetinghouse.
Local historian Ruth Rasey chronicling early life in Rupert pointed out, “Like all first settlers in Vermont, they were religious people and Sams on Occom played an important role in bringing settlers and native folk together (circa 1768). “Occom watched as the thirty-eight by thirty- foot boxlike wooden edifice was built”, Ruth Rasey writes of the settlers, “All of the people being of one faith, church and town government in those days were closely united.”