Building Description

The church is a tall white two-story clapboard gable-roofed structure. A four-story tower with steeple, added later, stands at the front. The north (rear) and west sides are two bays apiece and still have most of the original sashing on their windows. The east side has three bays, reflecting its onetime status as the church's main entrance, and it still has the classically detailed doorway with sidelights. The cornice's original dentils are still present but difficult to see.

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Inside there are box pews typical of the era with raised and fielded panels, a late medieval touch.  A raised hexagonal pulpit is mounted against the west wall. A three-sided gallery fills the building's second story; it can be reached via the tower stairs. The wood finishes on the interior are unpainted.

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A cemetery with gravestones dating to the era of the church's founding is also located on the site. 

History

The meetings of local Baptists that became the church began in 1783 at nearby Woodlawn Farm, the home of member Richard Wood, an early local settler. Eight years later, in 1791, the church was formally incorporated and the following year another member, Joseph Hallock, gave land for the church to be built. It took the Brookfield name from the growing settlement.

In 1832, the church broke with mainstream Baptists and affiliated itself instead with the Primitive Baptist movement, which the year before had rejected the evangelical directions the denomination was taking in the Third Great Awakening. Believing that eschewing foreign missions and Sunday schools was more in line with early Calvinism, the church took the name of Old School Meetinghouse of Brookfield. They kept Brookfield in their name even after the postal service forced the hamlet to change its name to Slate Hill to avoid confusion with New York's other Brookfield, in Madison County.

After the Civil War, stoves provided the building's first heat. Over the next few decades, the congregation began dwindling until its last member died in 1933. But trustees continued to hold the required annual meeting and maintain the building.