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Changewater Methodist Episcopal Church
Lebanon Township, Hunterdon County
Changewater was the “first settlement in the Musconetcong Valley to warrant cartographic recognition,” appearing on a 1748 map. It was the site of several mills and quarries as well as an early ironworks, which required water to power the bellows, an ample supply of wood to make charcoal, and iron ore. Of the three, the supply of wood was probably the most important, for when the nearby hardwood forests were denuded, the ironmakers departed for other locations. There are no mills, furnaces or quarries anymore—just a few dozen houses strung along the one road paralleling the river and a couple of dwellings across the river in Warren County.
The Methodist church in Changewater was founded in 1870, and this building, erected in 1900, was based on the plans from a book issued by Benjamin Price. (Plan # 103/103a in the 1906 edition, although certainly offered in previous editions of Church Plans.) Except for the addition of the ramp, this church has hardly changed in the century since it was built. The Gothic Revival influence clearly remained strong, even after half a century.
The "tracery" in the main window is actually composed of three rhombus-shaped windows over three identical triangular-shaped tall windows—a clever, low-cost means of providing an up-to-date version of the tripartite window that was a convention of the Gothic Revival style.
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(c) 2001 Frank L. Greenagel
