The Westport Island Town Hall was originally built as a house of worship — the Union Meeting House — in the mid-1790s. In colonial Massachusetts at that time, to become a town, a community was expected to establish a Meeting House for worship.

A group of Jeremysquam residents had already established an informal “church” when the Rev. Benjamin Randall, an itinerant Baptist preacher from southern New Hampshire, visited in 1780. Afterward, Baptist Elder Daniel Hibbard, settled in the area and served as the Baptist minister at the Union Meeting House until the early 1820s.

After the decline of the Baptist Society members and the death of Rev. Hibbard, in the 1830s a new religious group was now meeting on Westport: the Methodist Episcopal congregation. They shared the Union Meeting House with the Baptist congregation.

By 1864, the membership of both congregations declined, and the Union Meeting House was abandoned. in 1885, the town purchased the building after residents voted to pay $1 for it. The residents also voted to spend $250 for its renovation, so that “The young people are to have use of the hall without charge once a week and the ladies sewing circle may have the hall whenever they wish.”

The Town Hall then became a center for Westport community life. It became the location for meetings of the Westport Grange, Chapter #516, begun by resident farmer Henry Swanton in 1911. It also hosted many community gatherings, dances, and other social events.

In 1955, the Westport Community Association was formed. From the beginning, the WCA made use of the Town Hall in their activities, using it as the base for their fundraising work and social activity. From the Association’s first report of activities, August 12, 1957: “Several hot suppers and a cookout were held in this first summer [1956] as money-making ventures. These netted more than $200. In conjunction with the Westport Volunteer Fire Department, the Association sponsored the weekly Saturday night dances and earned about $115.”

Since then, the WCA and other town committees use the Town Hall for a variety of activities, including town meetings and voting. In Westport Island’s spirit of voluntarism, the management of the Town Hall has been in the charge of a Town Committee of residents, who see that the Hall is cleaned, help the Selectmen with the leasing, perform regular maintenance tasks, and oversee the major capital projects that keep the Hall in great shape.

In 2002 the Town Hall, along with the adjoining Westport Community Church, were entered in the National Register of Historic Places.