First Church in Boston
Encyclopedia
Unitarian Universalism
Unitarian Universalism is a religion characterized by support for a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Unitarian Universalists do not share a creed; rather, they are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth and by the understanding that an individual's theology is a...
(originally Congregationalist Church) founded in 1630 by John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
's original Puritan settlement in Boston, Massachusetts. The current building is on 66 Marlborough Street in Boston.
History
The church was created in 1630 when the settlers on the ArbellaArbella
The Arbella or Arabella was the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet on which, between April 8 and June 12, 1630, Governor John Winthrop, other members of the Company and Puritan emigrants transported themselves and the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company from England to Salem, thereby giving legal...
arrived in what is now Charlestown, Massachusetts
Charlestown, Massachusetts
Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and is located on a peninsula north of downtown Boston. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874...
. Two years later they constructed a meeting house across the Charles River
Charles River
The Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
near what is now State Street
State Street (Boston)
State Street is a major street in the financial district in Boston, Massachusetts and is one of the oldest streets in the city. The street is the site of some historic landmarks. The Faneuil Hall Marketplace can also be found nearby...
in Boston. From 1633 to 1652 John Cotton was a teaching elder at the church and helped to establish the foundation of the Congregationalist Church, the official state church
State church
State churches are organizational bodies within a Christian denomination which are given official status or operated by a state.State churches are not necessarily national churches in the ethnic sense of the term, but the two concepts may overlap in the case of a nation state where the state...
of Massachusetts. In the 18th century, Charles Chauncy
Charles Chauncy (1705-1787)
Charles Chauncy was an American Congregational clergyman in Boston. He was ordained as a minister of the First Church, Boston, in 1727 and remained in that pulpit for 60 years. Next to Jonathan Edwards, his great opponent, Chauncy was probably the most influential clergyman of his time in New...
was a minister at First Church for sixty years and gained a reputation for opposing what he believed was emotionalism during the Great Awakening
First Great Awakening
The First Awakening was a Christian revitalization movement that swept Protestant Europe and British America, and especially the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal...
of Jonathan Edwards.
A schism developed at the turn of the 19th century, the trinitarian Christian church eventually transformed into a unitarian
American Unitarian Association
The American Unitarian Association was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it merged with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.According to Mortimer Rowe, the Secretary...
congregation by the mid-19th century along with many of the other state churches in Massachusetts. Massachusetts' state churches (largely Unitarian and Congregationalist) including First Church were officially disaffiliated with the government in 1833.
In the 19th century, the First Church moved to Back Bay in Boston. The building at 66 Marlborough Street in Boston dated from 1867 and was designed by Boston architects William Robert Ware
William Robert Ware
William Robert Ware , born in Cambridge, Massachusetts into a family of the Unitarian clergy, was an American architect, author, and founder of two important American architectural schools....
and Henry Van Brunt
Henry Van Brunt
Henry Van Brunt FAIA was a 19th-century American architect and architectural writer.-Life and work:Born in Boston in 1832, Van Brunt attended Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard College in 1854...
. After a fire in 1968, First Church and Second Church
Second Church, Boston
The Second Church in Boston, Massachusetts was first a congregational church, and then beginning in 1802, a unitarian church. The congregation occupied a number of successive locations around town, including North Square, Hanover Street, Copley Square, and the Fenway. Ministers included Increase...
merged and built a new building at the same location. This building, by architect Paul Rudolph
Paul Rudolph (architect)
Paul Marvin Rudolph was an American architect and the dean of the Yale School of Architecture for six years, known for use of concrete and highly complex floor plans...
, incorporates part of the facade of the 1867 building.
Second Church, founded in 1649 when the population spread to the North End legitimated an additional congregation sited closer to those individuals' homes, was also known as the "Church of the Mathers;" its pulpit was home to Increase Mather
Increase Mather
Increase Mather was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay . He was a Puritan minister who was involved with the government of the colony, the administration of Harvard College, and most notoriously, the Salem witch trials...
, Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...
, and Samuel Mather
Samuel Mather
Samuel Mather was born in Cleveland, Ohio and for many years was that city's richest citizen and a major philanthropist, particularly favoring Kenyon College. In 1847 his father had founded the Cleveland Iron Mining Company, and Mather was destined to follow him in the management of this company....
from 1664 to 1741. Both churches were examples of the westward movement of Boston churches from the crowded, older downtown area to the newer, more fashionable Back Bay after it was filled in during the late 19th century-early 20th century. Second Church's Back Bay location in the Fenway was sold (it is now owned by the Ruggles St. Baptist congregation) just before the merger.
Notable people associated with First Church
- John Wilson (pastor 1632-1667; d.1667)
- John Cotton (pastor 1633-1652)
- John WinthropJohn WinthropJohn Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
, founder and governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony - John NortonJohn Norton (Puritan divine)John Norton was a Puritan divine, and one of the first authors in the United States of America.-Career:...
(pastor 1656-1663) - John Davenport (pastor 1668-1670)
- James Allen (pastor 1668-1710; d.1710)
- John OxenbridgeJohn OxenbridgeJohn Oxenbridge was an English Nonconformist divine, who emigrated to New England.-Life:He was born at Daventry, Northamptonshire, and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Magdalen Hall, Oxford .As tutor of Magdalen Hall he drew up a new code of articles referring to the government of...
(pastor 1670-1674) - Joshua Moodey (pastor 1684-1692; d.1697)
- John BaileyJohn Bailey (minister)John Bailey or Baily was an English dissenting minister, later in life in New England.-Early life:Bailey was, according to Cotton Mather, who preached his funeral sermon, born near Blackburn in Lancashire on 24 February 1643-4.' He was the son of Thomas Bailey, member of the congregation of the...
(pastor 1693-1697; d.1697) - Benjamin WadsworthBenjamin WadsworthBenjamin Wadsworth was an early American clergyman and educator. He was trained at Harvard College...
(pastor 1696-1737) - Thomas Bridge (pastor 1705-1715; d.1715)
- Thomas FoxcroftThomas FoxcroftThomas Foxcroft was a minister of the First Church in Boston, Massachusetts in the 18th-century.-Biography:Foxcroft was born on February 26, 1697 in Boston to "Colonel Francis Foxcroft, warden of King's Chapel" and "Elizabeth Danforth, daughter of Governor Danforth." He was educated at...
(pastor 1717-1769) - Charles Chauncy (pastor 1727-1787)
- John Clarke (pastor 1778-1798)
- William EmersonWilliam Emerson (minister)The Rev. William Emerson was one of Boston's leading citizens, a liberal-minded Unitarian minister, pastor to Boston's First Church and founder of its Philosophical Society, Anthology Club, and Boston Athenaeum, and father to Ralph Waldo Emerson.-Biography:Emerson was born in Concord,...
(pastor 1799-1811) - John Lovejoy Abbott (pastor 1813-1814)
- Nathaniel Langdon FrothinghamNathaniel Langdon FrothinghamNathaniel Langdon Frothingham was an American Unitarian minister and pastor of the First Church of Boston from 1815 to 1850. Frothingham was opposed to Theodore Parker and the interjection of transcendentalism into the church...
(pastor 1815-1850) - Sophia Henrietta Emma Hewitt (music director 1815-17(?), daughter of James HewittJames Hewitt (musician)James Hewitt was an American conductor, composer and music publisher. Born in Dartmoor, England, he was known to have lived in London in 1791 and early 1792, but went to New York in September of that year. He stayed in New York until 1811, conducting a theater orchestra and composing and...
- Charles ZeunerCharles ZeunerCharles Zeuner was an organist and composer active in Germany for a time, and then in Boston and Philadelphia in the United States.-Biography:...
(music director 1839-?) - Lucien H SouthardLucien SouthardLucien Southard was an American conductor, who directed concerts at the Peabody Institute following the tenure of James Monroe Deems. Southard's reign in control of the Institute was not entirely positive, a situation which Southard blamed on the lack of a "proper musical atmosphere" in...
(music director 1848-?) - Rufus Ellis (pastor 1853-ca.1885; d.1885)
- Whitney Eugene ThayerWhitney Eugene ThayerWhitney Eugene Thayer was an American organist and composer.Thayer gave his first concert just after the installation of the new organ in the Boston Music Hall in 1863...
(music director 1869-1875) - Arthur FooteArthur FooteArthur William Foote was an American classical composer, and a member of the "Boston Six." The other five were George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker.The modern tendency is to view Foote’s music as “Romantic” and “European” in light of the...
(music director 1878-1910) - Charles Edwards Park (minister 1906-1946, emeritus 1946-1962)
- Rhys Williams (minister 1960-2000)
- Stephen Kendrick (minister 2001–present)
Further reading
- Arthur Blake Ellis and George Edward EllisGeorge Edward EllisGeorge Edward Ellis was a Unitarian clergyman and historian.-Biography:Ellis was born and died in Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1833, and then from the Divinity School in 1836. After two years' travel in Europe, he was ordained, on 11 March 1840, as pastor of the Harvard Unitarian Church,...
. History of the First Church in Boston, 1630-1880. Boston: Hall & Whiting, 1881. - Leo W. Collins. This is our church: the seven societies of the First Church in Boston 1630-2005. Boston: Society of the First Church in Boston, 2005. Google books
External links
- First Church in Boston website
- 1630 Christian Covenant of First Church in Boston
- The Music of First Church Boston website