"“Furniture” in Colonial American churches" Topic

Yesterday st Historicon, I bought the very nice Sarissa laser cut Western or Colonial Church.
Since I intend to use it in scenarios in New England and all over the place, I want to be able to use it for more than decoration. The roof lifts off, so naturally there will be alarums and excursions within.

It's shockingly bare if furniture.
I quickly found via Google church pews from Noble Knight. They also had an altar and baptismal font. They looked rather, err Papist or Catholic to me. Having been raised Catholic, I would use them in a Catholic Church.
However, this is Puritan Massachusetts we're talking about here.
Would there be an altar?
Would the preacher have a lectern?
Would it be one of those elaborate tall ones?

What should I have besides pews, and who makes them in 28mm?

The intent is if course that the Godless British loot the churches looking for contraband that they may or may not find, and that the Minutemen be outraged by this.
No Tavington type outrages are contemplated.

While being Catholic as well I have limited experience with Puritan churches I believe that they would have a simple lectern and pews with a simple Communion table behind the lectern

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Here are some examples from a quick search of Google Images:

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I'm presuming that it's a steepled church, which is a late colonial design coming into vogue during the French Indian War period. (Early colonial New England 'churches' are very plain Meeting Houses which is also the town hall.

One of the earliest steepled varieties in New England is the Old North Church in Boston. Probably fancier on the outside then your model, but the interior is very characteristicly New England once they start separating the church building from the town hall building and it is not doubling for civic functions like town meetings.

In the center is a raised lectern with a commuion table in front of it. Off to the side is the high pulpit with a small staircase leading up to it. The design of the building and the raised speaking platforms give very good accoustics. The high pulpit isn't needed in a church without balconies. Modern ministers use microphones because they have not been taught how to project properly from the diaphragm!

The boxed in pews are quite standard. Families purchased their pews and no one else was allowed to sit in them, even if vacant.

Any errant Lobsters would know that the communion silver is likely in a small vestry area behind the back altar wall, or off in a small side room.

You need to be careful. Old North is Episcopalian- Church of England in 1775. It would indeed be fancier than Baptist, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed and Congregational churches of the period. Keep it simple. Is your model one or two story?
The galleries in Old North are the reason for the second set of windows.

This, actually.
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The crown troops did not generally disturb church of England facilities. Part of the little covered religious bent to the war.

I found a PDF that has the ring of truth to it, and confirms what I would have guessed to be true:

PDF link

The pertinent text:

"Seventeenth-century meetinghouses tended to be compact squarish buildings, with a steep four-sided roof rising to support a central "turret." They were constructed on the model of secular buildings in East Anglia such as courthouses and markets. The meetinghouses of New England were often set high on a commanding hilltop…
There was never an altar in Congregational New England; only a simple table which usually stood on the north wall rather than the east as in an Anglican church. Beside the table, a steep stairway or ladder rose to a high tub pulpit which dominated the room. Alice Morse Earle remembered that "the pulpit of one old unpainted church retained…as its sole decoration, an enormous, carefully painted, staring eye, a terrible and suggestive illustration to youthful wrong-doers." Above the pulpit a sounding board leaned ominously outward over the minister's head. In front of him was a lectern and a large wooden hourglass. Beneath the pulpit was the elders' seat, facing outward. The congregation sat before the pulpit, on rows of backless benches, later to be replaced by pews. Men were seated on one side of an aisle and women on the other, all carefully arranged in order of age, wealth and reputation. Most meetings had no ornaments except that terrible staring eye-no paint, no curtains, no plaster, no pictures, no lights-nothing to distract the congregation from the spoken word. There was no heat in these buildings, partly because the earliest meetinghouses also served as powder magazines, and fires threatened to blow the entire congregation to smithereens."

Model looks more like a baptist (small b) to me, which could be furnished with plain benches and a pulpit, without any ornamentation. But this would be more of a frontier or very rural type church.

Ok.
Who makes a nice simple 28mm pulpit?

I think unless it's Church of England/Episcopalian, rough benches, alter and lectern.

Look up photos of the Enfield Ct. congregational church.
While larger than the one your model depicts it is definitely a pre AWI build. Out front is a statue of one of the local worthies who called out the Militia when the excitement in Boston started. While under constant renovation (hey, it's 2018) the interior is representative of many churches built in the era.

I think you could get everything from 4ground, probably Noble Knight has them in stock: pulpit, pews, table.

Ah! Great!
I found the pews at Noble Knight, but was unaware of the pulpit.