In 1792 Baptist Village saw the construction of this first meetinghouse, known colloquially as the "Lord's barn", as funds ran out before its completion; it was described in the church's centennial history as "unsightly" and "excessively plain" in its first years.

[4]: 108  By 1801, the Congregationalists, having established their first church in the year prior, asked for use of the building in exchange for finishing it and adding permanent seating, to which the Baptists agreed.

With plans to develop this plot into residential tracts, he approached the board of the Holyoke Street Railway, at that time operating a small system of horsecars, who promptly rejected his calls for extending their lines to Elmwood.

The neighborhood would see considerable growth in the following years when these lines were electrified, offering accessible mass transit between the area and many of the factories in which its residents worked.

[9] Gradually the neighborhood, saw greater integration into Holyoke, as development continued outward from grid plan, and more workers could easily commute by foot making use of the streetcar, and subsequent bus system.