The picture on the top is the Methodist Episcopal Church in Portland Prairie, MN, built by people who had moved there from Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The white church on the bottom is the Methodist Church in Ipswich MA. The two churches were built within two years of each other - 1855 and 1857. The Ipswich church is bigger, more symmetrical, but they have something of the same style. In 1855, Ipswich had been a town for over 200 years, and had a long established population. Portland Prairie was still wild frontier in 1855. Minnesota didn't even become a state until 1858. The
Dakota Indian uprising of 1862 shows what a wild place Minnesota was, then.
Both places have meaning for me, so I find I constantly compare them this way. The steeple on the Ipswich church, by the way, was blown off in the hurricane of 1938. It was rebuilt only a few years ago by a cellular phone company in exchange for being able to put a receiver in the steeple. Many towns around here have ordinances that prohibit cell phone companies from putting up towers, so they make agreements like this with area churches. I like that.
The white church on the bottom is the Methodist Church in Ipswich MA. The two churches were built within two years of each other - 1855 and 1857. The Ipswich church is bigger, more symmetrical, but they have something of the same style. In 1855, Ipswich had been a town for over 200 years, and had a long established population. Portland Prairie was still wild frontier in 1855. Minnesota didn't even become a state until 1858. The Dakota Indian uprising of 1862 shows what a wild place Minnesota was, then. 
Both places have meaning for me, so I find I constantly compare them this way. The steeple on the Ipswich church, by the way, was blown off in the hurricane of 1938. It was rebuilt only a few years ago by a cellular phone company in exchange for being able to put a receiver in the steeple. Many towns around here have ordinances that prohibit cell phone companies from putting up towers, so they make agreements like this with area churches. I like that.
