First Congregational Church of Billerica

The First Congregational Church of Billerica stands on the north side of Andover Road, once called Sheldon's Lane, just northeast of the Town Common and next to the Sabbath Day House. The congregation was gathered in 1829 by Billerica people who held to the older, orthodox Calvinist theology as the town's First Parish Church in Billerica moved toward Unitarianism; a society was formed on January 17, 1829 and the church was organized on April 30, with Lyman Beecher as moderator of the council and twenty-five members. William Gleason and Aaron Patten were its first deacons and Ebenezer Stimpson its first clerk. Such splits were common in New England in the 1820s and 1830s, and the small new societies leaned on regional supporters, as this one plainly did.

The land was once part of the homestead of the innholder David Osgood, which passed after his death in 1768 to Solomon Pollard and his son Francis Pollard. In 1810 Francis Pollard sold a lot of 106 square poles on the lane to Francis Kidder, and in 1819 Kidder sold the rest of it, half an acre, to Theophilus Manning. On June 29, 1829 Manning sold "one certain piece of land ... on the north side of Sheldon lane so called containing by estimation fifty six poles", 115 feet on the lane, between his own land and John Baldwin's, for $300 to the Rev. Joseph Bennett, a minister of Woburn. The church's frame was raised on October 28, 1829, and the building, 60 by 40 feet, was dedicated on January 13, 1830.

The meeting-house was Bennett's gift. On April 26, 1830 he deeded the lot "with the meeting house thereon erected", which he had built "for the accommodation of christians professing the Orthodox faith ... & associated together in the Congregational form of government", to three trustees, Samuel Farrar of Andover, Benjamin Wyman of Woburn and the Rev. Amos Blanchard Jr. of Lowell. They were to let "the Church lately gathered in said Billerica & now under the pastoral care of the Revd John Starkweather" worship there "so long as said church shall maintain the orthodox faith", with the deacons renting the pews to pay for repairs, insurance and the minister's salary. If the trust failed, the land and building were to go to the Massachusetts Missionary Society. The trust still held the lot more than a century later.

John Starkweather, the first minister, was followed by Isaac Jones (1832 to 1834), Joseph Haven (1836), Benjamin Ela (1841) and Jesse G. D. Stearns, who came in 1843 and stayed until 1867; a leaded-glass window of about 1900 is "in memory of a faithful pastor and his wife, 1843-1867; Rev. J.G.D. and Lucy M. Stearns". After him came John P. Cleaveland (1867 to 1870), Evarts B. Kent, John M. Lord, the town's historian Henry A. Hazen (1874), John Haskell (1879) and Charles C. Torrey (1881). The Rev. J. Harold Dale began his ministry in 1903 and served for fifty years, living next door in the Sabbath Day House.

The building is a gable-front meeting-house facing south toward the road, with a three-stage tower at its southwest corner: a square base, a belfry and an octagonal lantern. In 1850 it was raised and a vestry story was built beneath it, and in 1865 "extensive repairs" gave it tall round-headed windows in the Italianate manner, later replaced by paired sash. The pipe organ, built by Samuel S. Hamill about 1860, was installed in 1890 as the gift of Azel W. Patten in memory of Aaron and Eliza Patten; it was rebuilt in 1966 and restored in 1993.

In 1928 the church added a two-story section, 31 feet long, to the back of the meeting-house for a chancel and choir. It was designed by the architect Edwin R. Clark, whose plans were filed with the state Department of Public Safety on August 22, 1928. The lower story held a kitchen and a boiler room. At the chancel level the east and west walls are set back several feet from the side walls of the church and have two sets of paired windows; the lower story has single windows. The same work gave the front a pair of ten-panel doors in a Tuscan pilastered surround and redid the interior in the Colonial Revival style. The next year the society was incorporated as the First Congregational Church in Billerica and the old First Orthodox Congregational Society was dissolved. An enclosed elevator was built against the north side of the chancel addition late in the 20th century.

When the church planned a parish house, Dale and his wife Katharine gave land behind the church from their own lot in 1952 and 1953, "for the purpose of making the Church lot large enough for a parish house"; in 1954 the First Parish gave part of the back land of its Unitarian parsonage, and on October 14, 1954 the trustees under Bennett's 1830 indenture, acting under a probate license, conveyed the rear of the trust land to the church corporation. Dale Parish Hall, an 84 by 50 foot, two-story wing behind the chancel, was built in 1955. The church added Lot B, the rest of the parsonage back land, in 1965 when the parsonage was sold, and a narrow strip on its west line in 1972. The assessor now carries the combined lots as one parcel of 1.757 acres. The church joined the United Church of Christ in 1961, is in the Billerica Center local historic district (1990), and still worships in the 1829 building.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 271: Congregational Church organized 1829, meeting-house raised Oct. 28, 1829, dedicated Jan. 13, 1830
2. Billerica assessor, parcel 51-31-1, 18 Andover Rd: 1.757 acres, combining parcels 51-29, 51-30, 51-31, 51-96 and 51-125

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.