The early meeting-house of the Puritans in New England were of a very
simple interior with raftered walls and sanded puncheon floors or
earthen floors. The early Dutch churches in New Netherlands also were
plain and they were kept in the greatest cleanliness, scrubbed often and
floors sanded with fine beach-sand. The churches of the Southern
colonies were usually better furnished and flowers were used for
decorations, which was never the case with the Puritans. The pulpits in
all the churches were rather pretentious affairs, being elevated above
the floor, enclosed, with a narrow flight of stairs leading up to them.
At least in the early Puritan churches there was a sounding-board placed
above the pulpit, which was a board supported from the roof by a slender
iron rod.