The population of old comers prospered and grew with newcomers arriving from both the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies, as well as others from old England, people settling also in the area nearer the Cape's south shore as well. This latter area of course we know today as the Town of Harwich. Then in 1694, it was determined by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Plymouth Colony having joined together with it two years before) that there were now enough persons to support a minister, a prime requirement for town. And so a charter was granted to form a new town, independent of Eastham. The town was now responsible for the erection and maintenance of a meetinghouse through self taxation. This church town relationship was to continue until the disestablishment of the church in Massachusetts in 1834.
These early churches of New England had no name by which to distinguish themselves other than by the name of the town, viz., the Church, or Church of Christ, in Harwich. They were all of "the Congregational Way" in thought and practice. The use of the word, Congregational, in a title was not to come until much later, and well after churches of other denominations had come into being.
Harwich's growth continued and, as happens with the influx of people anywhere, a variety of points of view began inevitably to as well. The rigidity of the orthodox thinking of the early settlers imposed on the first churches began to be challenged and modified. Another development was beginning within more than one Cape town, and that was a split into two geographical parishes. Usually the reason given was that it was a long, tiring journey for outlying members to travel, as they were required to, to attend worship on the Sabbath in the meetinghouse. Oftentimes this reason was at least a partial covering for a dislike of the preaching and teaching of the "settled" minister. For whatever reason, restlessness was rising in the southern part of Harwich, divided from the earliest part of the town by a number of large ponds and. divided also, apparently, on questions of taxation and other matters.
In 1744, the people of the south side asked the town meeting that a separate precinct be set off for them. Two men had already offered a tract of land for a meetinghouse here. However, the majority the meeting voted against the proposal. Several succeeding attempts made and failed, but enthusiasm amongst the south siders increased, many having been stimulated for fresh religious duties by an eloquent Newlight preacher from Connecticut traveling about this area. Meetings on the matter were held in various homes. Finally, a large group of men area directly petitioned the General Court, and despite the continuing opposition of the people of the North, the Council and the House concurred, and with the approval of Governor Shirley, the south became a "distinct and separate precinct", on January 16, 1747.
The first officers were: Joseph Doane, Samuel Burge, Jr., Gershom Hall, Edward Hall, Benjamin Nickerson and Edward Nickerson. April8 the precinct meeting voted "to carry on and finish the meetinghouse which had been begun by Capt. Jonathan Smalley even before the incorporation of the precinct. The deed to the land read as follows:
"Samuel Nickerson and Benjamin Smalley, both of Harwich, in the County of Barnstable and in the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England .. in consideration of the great need there is in this south part of Harwich of a piece of land to lay for publick uses, viz to set a meetinghouse on and also any other publick use that may be thought convenient for that neighbourhood or precinct in general...and the good will we have for said precinct and the mind to promote the publick good therein, have given, granted, enfeoffed and confirmed and by these presents do for our heirs, executors and administrators give, grant, bargain, enfeoff, confirm and deliver unto the people of said precinct a certain parcel of land situated in the said precinct or the south part of Harwich containing three acres ... to have and hold, the said granted and bargained premises with the appurtenances, free and clear to them, the said people of the said precinct or neighbourhood and to their heirs and successors in this precinct forever and for their use and improvement for a publick manner as above said forever .... In witness whereof, we the said Samuel Nickerson and Benjamin Smalley, have hereunto set our hands and seals this eighth day of March, Anno Domini 1743 and the seventeenth year of his Majesty's Reign."
A committee brought Mr. Edward Pell, a native Bostonian who had graduated from Harvard, to preach on April 26 and he was found to be so satisfactory that on July 6 he was called to "ye pastoral Office." His reply read as follows:
My Christian Friends: GREETING
I have received a copy under the hands of your clerk wherein you have elected me to the gospel ministry among you; and after supplication to God of all grace, for his direction and blessing in important affairs, serious consideration and advice, I do accept ye invitation you have given me, humbly trusting it is a call of God. I do accept what you have given me for my support and encouragement, and if ye same should not be sufficient for my support, I trust that you will afford such farther supplies from year to year, as that I may be enabled to perform the Ministerial office in some measure free from worldly incumbrences; and now my Christian friends and brethern I commit you and your families to the blessing of God, and asking your prayers for me, I subscribe.
Your affectionate friend and servant in Gospel of Christ. Edward Pell
Dated at Harwich 2 precinct August 17, 1747
Actually the precinct finally voted "to settle and ordain" him "to the pastoral office over the Church of Christ in the second precinct of Harwich" (the original name of our church) November 12, 174 7. It is this date we observe as our founding date, for it was then that Mr. Pell and the founding lay fathers, Ephraim Covel, Andrew Clarke, Nathaniel Smith, Nathaniel Doane and Samuel Burge, Jr. subscribed their names to the confession of faith and covenant, a counterpart of the original subscribed to by the founders of the first church, October 16, 1700.
Mr. Pell now fully entered upon his ministerial duties. His yearly salary was sixteen bushels of rye, ten of wheat, one hundred of corn, sixteen cord of oak and twenty of pine, cut and delivered. He was also promised a "convenient hovel" and land for "ye parsonage." During his pastorate the amount of supplies frequently had to be increased. Eventually those who neglected to provide their share of wood were allowed to pay their ministerial tax in cash. It became increasingly difficult to collect all that was due the minister from all the people because of trouble with some of the Newlights who had organized their own separate church. We know little of the Pell gifts or ministerial accomplishments, save that he was at times quite jocular and facetious. After six years in this church, at the age of forty one, Edward Pell died in 1752. On his death bed he made his famous request that he be buried, in the North Precinct because if buried among the pines of the South Precinct, he feared the Almighty might overlook a righteous man, in such an ungodly place. Apparently he feared this burial ground and the rude little meetinghouse would ultimately be abandoned and overgrown.
The second minister, Benjamin Crocker, native of Barnstable, came with a promise of forty pounds lawful money annual salary. He stayed two years to be succeeded by the Rev. John Dennis, whose pastorate of five years was marked by disagreements over supplies of wood and hay due him as part of his salary. Like many early Cape, ministers, he was also a physician. During his five years here there was only one admission to the church's membership. In 1761 the church recalled Mr. Crocker to serve for four more years. Apparently this man's real love was teaching, and he was never ordained.
A flowery letter to "ye second church and precinct of Harwich" from the next minister, the Rev. Jonathan Mills, a transient preacher, marked his acceptance of the call. A postscript notes his expectation of the first ministerial fringe benefit, leave to be absent three or four Sabbaths a year to visit friends and relatives. Once transient he may have been, but dying here in 1773 he was willing to stay and chance resurrection from a grave near our present Parish House. His reputation was that of a strong Calvinist who persuaded his hearers "by the terrors of the Lord." Despite his successes there were dissensions continuing from the past which were to continue to plague the church. Apparently the majority of the members tended toward Newlights and Free Will Baptist persuasion, though the Congregational minority had the law on its side. Harwich in the middle of the eighteenth century was the known center of religious unrest on the Cape. One traveling evangelist had reported, "The pine woods of Harwich ring with Hallelujahs and hosannas, even from babes! " The old guard of Congregational ministers on the Cape banded together to counteract the "sad consequents of itinerant preachers, but their serious appeals to reason didn't have a chance against the revivalist's appeals to emotions. This town apparently has always been a place warm in spirit, especially in the South Precinct. The days of the old ecclesiastical monopoly were ending: had become exempt from supporting the church. The Baptists and Methodists were soon to follow. In addition to all the theological controversy, political revolt with the mother country was breaking out. Town meetings were moving on to other secular concerns than the support of the standing order of churches. It was a discouraging time for the underpaid ministers.
The period of 1773 to 1792 was mainly marked by short ministries, shared pulpits with the West Harwich Baptist Church, and various contentions and controversies. During this time one minister had domestic difficulties on top of everything else and became enamored of a local widow. Needless to say, he was forced to take leave of the church. Another pathetic episode was the pastorate of Mr. Jonathan Jeffers, an Indian, from 1787 to 1789. He was invited to come preach in the meetinghouse by a few who held with him. But his efforts here were not fruitful and finally with his family in financial straits, he embarked in a ship at Bass River, never to return.
An upturn in the South Precinct's fortunes was indicated by the building of a new (the second) meetinghouse, and a call was issued to Nathan Underwood of Waltham over the objections of a number of Baptists in town, who did not want to "settle" a minister of the standing (Congregational) order. But come he did and with his bride. They were met at Barnstable by a group of men from the parish, with their wives, riding on horses, and escorted to their new home, a custom of the time.
This man towers over our history like no other, for his was the 'longest ministry in this church, some thirty six years, although he did not receive a salary his last few years. He had missed the Lexington and Concord engagements because of a badly cut foot, but he was in the thick of the battle at Bunker Hill and was one of the last to be routed by the British. Subsequently he fought in many of the famous engagements of the Revolution under General Washington and made the legendary crossing of the Delaware and experienced first hand the new starvation and bitter cold with the patriot forces in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This brave soldier was offered a commission after the war, but instead went to Harvard and solely through his own efforts prepared himself for the ministry. It was an experienced, dedicated, capable man of thirty nine who here accepted his ordination on the anniversary day, November 12, 1792, and entered this church's new pulpit.
Mr. Underwood's greatest successes came in the earliest years of his ministry. During his career here he added forty two members to the church, baptized one hundred and thirty five persons and solemnized four hundred and forty four marriages! He held firmly to Orthodox Congregational religious principles and herein lay his difficulties in a place where orthodoxy was only one of several religious viewpoints.
He also took a firm stand for the South Precinct in town affairs when the acrimony came to a head between the Harwich precincts, resulting in the complete breakaway of the North Precinct, and its subsequent formation into the separate town of Brewster in 1803, just as Harwich itself had earlier split off from Eastham. One local historian has likened this upheaval to a diminutive civil war. From this point on there seems to be no question that our South Precinct church was ever considered to be the second of anything. And when the Old North Church, now in Brewster, shortly thereafter chose to go over to Unitarianism, in that theological split from Congregationalism, the church here in Harwich could truly be considered to be the inheritor and conservator of the historic traditions of the past.
Perhaps Mr. Underwood's influence was greater in secular rather than ecclesiastical affairs. He was one of the most successful and scientific practical farmers in the community, teaching others how to produce hay the English way. The Underwood Memorial Window in stained glass of The Sower, dedicated in 1902, was an appropriate choice of subject. In later life he was Harwich's respected representative to the General Court in Boston. However, he decided to retire from active service as a pastor in 1819, for want of support, there being only one male member, Gershom Hall, left. Yet he performed ministerial duties for seven and a half more years, after his legal claim on the parish ended, and an ecclesiastical council did not formally dissolve his relationship with the Congregational Society until 1828. His seven sons all became successful. Some here, some traveling to the middle and far west, and there were Underwood descendants active in the church and community until just a few years ago. The Underwood family story belongs not only to this place but is a chronicle of Americana.
The church was at ebb tide for quite a while after Mr. Underwood's retirement. There was a series of winter pastorates, but little money was available to support a permanent parson, apparently. The Rev. Isaac W. Wheelwright managed to organize the first Temperance Society in town, though here only three months in 1827. In 1832 the Rev. Caleb Kimball was called here but shortly thereafter his eyesight failed him. He was later known as the blind preacher. More than seventy years after his pastorate ended, Capt. Edward B. Allen wrote this anecdote for the Harwich Independent: "I never use profane language for this reason, when I was a little barefoot boy, a blind minister said to me 'whenever you are tempted to swear, ask yourself these two questions. Is it right? And will it do you any good?' That monitor has always been with me and has kept me from using profane language." This was eloquent testimony to the lasting influence of the good ministry of Mr. Kimball.
1835 the church was again able to employ a minister without aid from the Home Missionary Society, and during the pastorate of the Rev. Charles S. Adams, a man in the prime of life, forty one persons joined the church. Mr. Adams was a founder of the Seaman's Friend Society and keenly devoted to temperance and anti tobacco causes, writing a widely circulated poem for the latter. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was "elegant in dress, with his blue glasses and cane, so friendly with children making himself felt in the Lyceum." He was gifted with words for the saving of souls, a born leader, who, after his three-year pastorate, left a different church and town.
Later there were more short-term ministers, but the Rev. Mr. William H. Adams arrived in 1841 and in about three years added sixty-two more members to the church. His successor was the Rev. Cyrus Stone, a rather austere man, who had been a missionary to India for fourteen years. When the Stones left Harwich in 1848, they left a pathetic reminder of their stay here, the small gravestone of a two-year son in our cemetery. It is said that the next minister, the Rev. Theophilus F. Sawin, was more popular but was "addicted to long sermons"
During the pastorate of the Rev. Moses Hale Wilder from 1851 to 1858 the church went through a period of administrative shaking up: he reorganized and systematized the church benevolences, raised standards and generally toned things up. He was described as strong, erect, substantial, sometimes severe. It was also during his ministry that those of the church who had wanted a church in Harwich Port called a meeting in the "vestry of the Meeting House on March 5, 1854" on the matter. Later that month twenty people from this congregation subscribed their names and thus became the charter members of Pilgrim Church in Harwich Port. In the preamble to their proposed constitution they indicated not only an increased population in that area but also a "feeling of the importance of maintaining and supporting the Gospel in its purity" and that their new meetinghouse "be occupied by an Evangelical Minister of the Gospel." It does not seem that these words should' be used as criticism of Mr. Wilder because in John Paine's 200th Anniversary lecture the latter quoted from a later pastor, the Rev. George Y. Washburn, "From Kimball to Wilder there was not one among them whom you would say he needed to be converted, that he did not believe the gospel he preached. They were able to give a reason for the faith that was in them. They were educated trained in college and seminary. They lived for the glory of God and the salvation of man."
From 1858 to 1868 the pulpit was supplied by the Rev. Joseph Rice Munsell, a man noted for his ease and affability, whose children later settled here. His son, Dr. Charles Munsell was for many years the village physician. After his retirement Mr. Munsell came back to live in Harwich and is buried near the present church building. Alas, after his departure, there was again a series of short ministries, but faithful Deacon Sidney Underwood also helped with the preaching. Among the brief sojourners were traveling evangelists, licentiates and one too liberal minister who caused many to attend worship elsewhere. In 1880 the Rev. Rufus B. Tobey began a four year pastorate; but he was later to give up the ministry to engage in organized charity work in Boston and was the originator of the Boston Floating Hospital.
Over the years members of a number of our ministerial families took root in Harwich to the enrichment of the whole town. Today the citizen who best exemplifies this is Ralph U. Brett, long a First Selectman, a grandson of the Rev. Henry F. Cutting, minister of the church in 1885, as well as a great great grandson of the illustrious Nathan Underwood!
Two brief pastorates of the 1890s are worth mentioning: that of the Rev. J. Walter Sylvester, later a minister in a large Albany, New York church and that of the Rev. J. H. Whittaker, Jr., later a convert to Catholicism. The shortness of Mr. Sylvester's stay was occasioned by illness, but he had become so attached to this place that he commended a twenty five year old friend, Artemas J. Haynes, to the church.
Mr. Haynes was called and ordained here in 1894. The Haynes, boyhood in Maine had been one of hard manual labor, fishing and shipwreck. He was known as a man full of promise with an eloquent tongue. The prophecy was to be fulfilled, for he later served in two famous and influential Congregational pulpits: Plymouth Church, Chicago, and United. Church on the Green, New Haven, the latter long having close associations, with Yale. Thanks to the Outlook, the denominational magazine of that time, his doctrinal statement for his ordination in Harwich became famous throughout the churches and marked a tolerant stride ahead, for Mr. Haynes did not believe in everlasting punishment, yet was accepted for ordination. His eloquent tongue also won him a Harwich bride, Bertha Snow, in whose ancestral home here they were to live. In the years after his Harwich ministry, he also used a camp on Long Pond, where he could read and write his sermons in the peace and quiet of summer vacations. The sad ending to his story is his 1908 death by drowning in that pond. This man, one of the most distinguished of our preachers, lies buried in Island Pond Cemetery, the fourth of our ministers to lie "among the pines" of Harwich.
The incorporation of this church as a legal body under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts finally came at the urging of the Rev. George Y. Washburn, who became the minister in 1896. Apparently the first part of the name we presently bear, First Congregational Church of Harwich, was not adopted until this incorporation, after about one hundred and fifty years of our existence. Mr. Washburn, unlike Mr. Haynes, held to old Congregationalism's most fearful theories. He went about the sandy roads, then unsullied by oil or macadam, with his white horse and buggy, intent on harvesting souls.
The minister who helped First Church enter the twentieth century was the learned and eloquent Rev. Charles H. Rowley. His ministry was like calm after the storm. At this time the last surviving member of the Brooks family, which long had provided lay pillars of strength to this church, was Miss Sarah G. Brooks. Mr. Rowley became aware of this strong personality one day when he called at the Brooks home. When Miss Sarah opened the door, the minister asked to see her lord and master. She responded with acerbity, "I HAVE no master, but my Lord is in Heaven." This little exchange did not prevent the Rowley family from being the first occupants of the Broadbrooks parsonage built in 1902, across Main Street from the church property, as a gift from Miss Brooks. In 1903 the pleasing custom was begun of buying Easter lilies and distributing them to the sick and shut in after the service. Mrs. Handy and Mrs. Rowley had this honor.
After Mr. Rowley left in 1904 more than two decades went by when the church's congregation decreased. A succession of pulpit supply preachers tried to pierce religious apathy in the town with little effect. In 1928 a cry finally arose for a resident minister and Mr. Howard R. May was engaged. He quickly was hard at work, interest revived, and he was soon drawing large congregations. But seized by illness, he was summoned to his Maker on Christmas Day, 1929, the first minister to die in office since the eighteenth century. It was a solemn and impressive moment when, amidst the tolling of the bell, the pastor's body was bome from the church sanctuary for interment in Shutesbury on the hills of Franklin County in Massachusetts.
Affairs in the church were plagued with a period of penury and indifference until 1933, when a young theological student, George Hunt, appeared on the scene. From his often discouraging yet patient labors under trying circumstances was eventually to come the flowering of our church which we have experienced in recent years. His initial salary was $25.00 a week. The deacons strongly advised him not to marry, for this remuneration would not support a wife, and the church was not about to provide any increase. But love can find a way one Sunday the congregation was invited to remain after the service for a wedding. A minister friend from Brewster was present and joined George and Ruth Call, a lovely fellow student at Gordon College, in holy matrimony, to the delight of all, with the possible exception of a dour deacon. It is most probable that Ruth was the first woman to preach from our pulpit, when, at the last minute, she had to fill in for her husband, ill with the grippe. She was actually delighted with the opportunity to present her views in public, having had a recent theological disagreement with her husband. This hastened his recovery, and it is reported he made a rebuttal the following Sunday. Both of the Hunts were later to go on to highly successful careers in education near Boston rather than in church work. They presently make their retirement home in East Harwich.
Our next minister was Dr. Henry G. Newell, who came to us in 1934, from the presidency of Piedmont College in Georgia. Following Dr. Newell in 1943 was the Rev. George Loring Thurlow who was most successful in bringing new members into the church and obtaining generous gifts for refurbishing its building. He was an esteemed and dedicated pastor. Not averse to making parish calls at mealtime (the hour meant little to him), he and Mrs. Thurlow often reciprocated by entertaining at the parsonage.
The congregation enthusiastically entered into the 200th Anniversary celebration in 1947 when an elaborate pageant of the town's history with costume and music was written and performed. This was also the occasion of the memorable historical address by John Paine, which has already been mentioned. (There had been a 175th Anniversary celebration with seven ministerial addresses or sermons, which would seem a bit ponderous by today's standards.)
The Cape has been known as a delightful spot during the warm weather months from the days when the Indians from the Rhode Island tribes journeyed here to swim each year before the days of the white settlers. Nineteenth and twentieth century prosperity created modern tourism. Harwich in the post war period had become an especially popular resort area, and Mr. Thurlow held summer Sunday services with visitors in mind: a brochure of the time promised special music and a service of not more than one hour. It was apparent then and has been since that many visitors from the city find real joy in worshipping in this, serene, old meetinghouse and with a congregation of friendly faces. The Social Union of the church was started in 1949 and is still an integral part of church life.
In 1953 the Rev. Harry L. Meyer, a man hearty of voice and manner, came from Fall River to be our minister and became an especially beloved and devoted pastor. He and his capable wife, Alma, were both very active in the church and Sunday School and generously opened their parsonage home for church use. Sixty five new members joined the church at just one of his services. A famous Biblical professor, Dr. Morton S. Enslin, summer attendant of this church, found the Meyer sermons to be filled with warmth, humor, amazing pertinence and called his preaching great in an article published in a homeletical journal. The introduction in 1956 of the first church secretary, Edith Benchley, was a modern advance for the church and pastor. On his retirement in 1959 Mr. Meyer was honored by being named the first minister emeritus in the church's history. So he remains with us today. He and his successor, the Rev. J. Edward Elliot, said that their happiest years in the ministry were those spent in the Harwich church.
Mr. Elliot began life as a Maine lighthouse keeper's son and was to be briefly one himself. He brought the philosophy of this background to the maintenance and advancement of our church beginning in 1960. Coming from a Portland, Maine, church, Mr. Elliot proved to be a greatly esteemed pastor to his flock, showing his warm, tender concern in human relationships. He was also fortunate in having a gracious wife at his side whose talents were to enrich the worship of the church with her lovely voice and whose skills aided the Brooks Library of the town. In a day and age of change when many churches began to experience unexpected upheavals, First Church was a "happy ship." Its steady growth continued and the congregation provided generous support of modem mission enterprises beyond the community as well. The church voted to become a part of the United Church of Christ May 17, 1961. A tradition of men's auctions in late summer was begun, a day for fun and profit and enabled all mortgages to be paid off in full. The custom of observing Maundy Thursday in Lent with a service of Tenebrae led by the deacons was begun during the Elliot ministry. Barbara Griffin was added to the church staff as secretary and then Ellsworth Philip as custodian. Both of these continue to fulfill the duties of their positions with a spirit of real ministry to all those they meet, and the church is indeed fortunate to have their services. Barbara's husband, Donn Griffin, is presently Harwich's first selectman. Christmas 1970 was a time for both tears and joy in the church when the Elliot's retired to a home on Cape Elizabeth in Maine.
The arrival of Cape Cod's usual late spring in May, 1971, also brought the arrival of a new minister, the Rev. Albert C. Ronander, all the way from the San Francisco Bay area. However, like our earliest ministers, he is a native of Massachusetts, polished off his theological education at Harvard, and like them usually wears the Genevan bands and gown on Sundays. Before coming to us he served churches in New England and the west and held positions in the national offices of our denomination. "Both Parson Al and his wife, Harriett, have been accepted with enthusiasm by young and old alike, and we look forward to a future of joyful service in the Lord's name together."
After serving the church for nine years, and feeling the need to "slacken the pace", Parson Al Ronander submitted his resignation as minister, effective September 30, 1980. He and his wife, Harriett, are still living in Yarmouthport where they remain very active. Janice Shepherd had joined the church staff as a Seminary student during Parson Al's term of service and spent six years at the church involved with youth and family ministry. First Church was honored to be a part of her Ordination and our good wishes followed her to her new ministry in Lancaster, N.H.
The Reverend Mr. Louis Toppan was called to serve as interim minister of the church. Toppy and his wife, Adra, held the congregation together with great sermons, warm pastoral work, and experience and wisdom while the Search Committee was hard at work. The Reverend Mr. James B. Williams was installed as our minister on May 16, 1982. Mr. Williams had served the church in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and served First Church through 1984.
The Reverend Mr. Roy Colby was then called as Interim and served until the Congregation called the Reverend Mr. Charles T. Newberry to serve as our minister beginning September 21, 1985. Mr. Newberry had served churches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. He was called from his position as Chaplain to Cape Cod Hospital where he had established a Department of Pastoral Care as Part of a "tent making" ministry of the Cape Cod Council of Churches. During the first five years of his pastorate, the church began to grow, Pine Oaks Village expanded (1989), and the church built and dedicated the Memorial Garden west of the Church Cemetery (1989). The Reverend Mr. Toppan had moved to Cape Cod and became a member of the Church in 1984 and was called by the church to return to service as the Minister of Visitation in 1986.
By 1989, Mr. Toppan was anxious to retire from service and Peg Carver Schad was retiring from her service as Director of Christian Education to devote more of her time to an expanding music program. The church began a study of its needs and after three congregational meetings with full and unanimous votes at each called the Reverend Mr. John Nelson Erickson, III, as its first full time Associate Minister. Mr. Erickson is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, a graduate of Bowdoin College and has served in the United States Army. Since 1990 the church has grown in number and activity. For our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, we have voted to conduct a capital campaign to expand the facilities of our church properties to accommodate anticipated growth and continuing strength.
In 1997 The Rev. Erickson left First Church to assume the role of senior pastor of the Congregational Church in Boxborough, Massachusetts and the Rev. Jane Pearsall was called as the Interim Associate Minister. After an extensive search the Rev. Anne L. Weirich was called as the new permanent Associate minister. In May of 2001 the Congregation voted to make our church one of only 47 out of the 485 churches in the Massachusetts Conference to be Open & Affirming. In 2002 the Rev. Anne Weirich accpted a post as pastor in a small town in California. Due to the relative decline in church population it was decided to remain with one pastor.
The church's Capital Campaign raised 100's of thosands of dollars and we embarked on a building program that involved the complete renovation and enlargement of the Thrift Shop, a renovation of the Parish Hall, and now the reconstruction of the Narthex/Elliot Room and the refurbisment of the Sanctuary. Today's celebration of the reopening of our church is a remembrance of our 257 year sojurn together.
