I'm trying to write about a ruined one for a story and I'm unsure as to whether there would have been large glass windows.
I would find sketches, drawings, and pictures useful as well as details about what the rest of the building would typically look like/contain.
I was also wondering if there were many of these churches in Maine.
Thank you. If this is the wrong sub for this question, I will move it.
Many of the original colonial meeting houses still exist.
The meeting house was a building, usually funded by tax money, used for religious worship and town government (town meetings).
Quite a few of the meeting houses have been altered over the centuries (most of them are still in use, often as a Congregational church (the main denomination which descends from the Puritans - though there are others). The addition of a steeple was a popular alteration (the earliest meeting houses often did not have one).
Yes, they often had glass windows. (Don't know whether you would consider them to be large).
Here is a website with many photos of colonial meeting houses in close to their original condition:
http://www.colonialmeetinghouses.com/locations_00.shtml#maine
6 of the ones pictured on the website are in Maine, all built between 1750 and 1790.
If you search around on the website, you will find some pictures of interiors.
The oldest meeting house which still survives in New England is from 1681 in Hingham, Massachusetts. It is also pictured on this website.
Think quite plain as the other commenters have said they were meeting houses as much as religious spaces. The puritans largely shied away from outward symbolism except for things like plain crosses due to their reform theology. They often were a multipurpose building for all sort of community business until town grew to have dedicated buildings for differing facets of town life. Generally one would sit on long low backless benches in simpler houses where as later on 1680+ I think some had more pew style or almost bleacher type seating as was later seen in Quaker meetinghouses
If you are thinking about the traditional massive mosaic windows, I doubt that early puritans would have the ability to acquire them.