Church & State Walking Tour: The Arcade Building

1 West Main Street

              The Second Meeting House was built on this site in 1749. It was a plain, wooden building and was used for both church services and town meetings, since church and state were essentially inseparable at the time. According to the diary of Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, Westborough’s first minister,  the first meeting was held here on September 3, 1749. In 1837, the meeting house was sold to Luther Chamberlain, who decided to use it for commercial purposes. The first floor of the building was raised, and another floor was added underneath. The steeple was also removed. The building then became known as “The Arcade Building,” a kind of mall with small shops opening onto the porch.

In 1890, the original building was torn down and a new, larger brick building was built to replace it. However, the building retained the Arcade Building name. The building continued to be filled with retail businesses, but a rooming house was added on the upper floors. As time went on, the building grew older, and it was recently renovated in order to turn the old rooming houses into more modern-day apartments. Today, the Arcade Building is still filled with small shops and businesses.

Click here to return to “The Early Development of Westborough through Church and State” walking tour