First Parish Church in Dorchester Records 1636-1981 Guide to the Collection

Table of Contents Collection Summary Historical Sketch Sources Collection Description Acquisition Information Other Formats Organization of the Collection Detailed Description of the Collection Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Historical Sketch

In 1630, the Rev. John White and a group of 140 individuals formed a church in England, calling themselves Puritans. Although they originally established themselves as reformers rather than separatists, increasingly intolerable conditions in England caused them to emigrate. They set sail in the 400-ton ship Mary and John, and landed first at Hull, and later at a place called "Mattapan" by the Indians. The Puritans named their new home "Dorchester Plantation."

In 1631, a rude log cabin was built to serve as the first meeting house. The building also served as a fort, storehouse, schoolhouse, and town hall. The second church, originally built on the same site, was moved to Meeting House Hill in 1670. On that site, four more churches were constructed, in 1678, 1743, 1816, and the most recent after a fire in 1896.

For its first five years of existence, the parish had two ministers, John Warham and John Maverick. They were followed by Rev. Richard Mather, who served from 1636-1669. Mather, for whom a room in the Parish Hall is named, is perhaps one of church's most renowned ministers. He is best remembered for helping to produce the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the colonies.

Other ministers of long-standing tenures included Revs. John Danforth, who served from 1682-1730; Jonathan Bowman, 1729-1773; Thaddeus Mason Harris, 1793-1836; and Nathaniel Hall, 1835-1875. During Harris' tenure, the church evolved from a Trinitarian Congregational church to the Unitarian denomination, although Harris himself never believed in denominational titles. (Harris then proceeded to serve as Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society from 1837-1842.)

Until the 1830s, when a true separation of church and state occurred on the local level, town taxes were used to support the church. As a result, church and civic matters were inextricably linked. The town of Dorchester was annexed by the city of Boston in 1870.

Despite these changes, relationships between the church and the community continued. The Female Benevolent Society, formed in 1842 as a branch of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Christian Women, later sewed clothing for soldiers in the Civil War, as well as providing aid to the local destitute.

Sources

Historical Guide for the 325th Anniversary of the First Parish Church established 1630; Foundation Stone of Our Nation, Dorchester, Massachusetts. Dorchester, Mass.: First Parish Church, 1955.

Field, Harold. An Inventory of the Records of the Particular (Congregational) Churches of Massachusetts Gathered 1620-1805.Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1970.

Collection Description

Records of the First Parish Church in Dorchester, a Congregational and later Unitarian church, include bound and loose general church records (1636-1981); financial and property records, including account books (1807-1962), pew records (1816-1929), and records relating to church buildings; and scrapbooks of church history (1859-1935) collected by Mary Fifield King, the church historian. Also included are papers kept by church ministers and deacons, including Thaddeus M. Harris, Nathaniel Hall, Samuel J. Barrows, James Humphreys, and Ebenezer Clapp, Jr.; records of church clubs and organizations, including the First Parish branch of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women (1844-1916) and church Sunday school records (1853-1917); and records of the Church of the Unity (1859-1920), which was absorbed by the First Parish Church in 1920. In addition to church records, First Parish town records, among them parish tax records (1808-1854), are also included.

Acquisition Information

The records of the First Parish Church were placed on deposit at the Massachusetts Historical Society by the church in 1992.

Other Formats

On microfilm, P-678, 1 reel. The microfilm contains only bound church records for 1636-1778.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

First Parish Church (Dorchester, Mass.) records, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.