History from 1986 Ministerial Search

During a ministerial search, we create a profile of First Parish. This is the history section from the 1986 search.

"What's past is prologue." William Shakespeare, The Tempest

In 1640, the townspeople of the new settlement of Sudbury gathered together for formal religious services led by the Reverend Edmund Browm. That was the beginning of the First Parish of Sudbury.

Many events have occurred in the three hundred and forty-six years since then — events which have shaped the development and formed the background of the First Parish of Sudbury of today.

Of course, the history of First Parish is interwoven with the colonial and Revolutionary War history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in which Sudbury residents played a large part. A major engagement of King Phi1ip's War in 1676 was fought in Sudbury, and the men and boys of the Sudbury Companies of Militia and Minute were at Concord on the 19th of April in 1775. After the Revolutionary War, the original Sudbury was partitioned into west and east parishes, which are now the towns of Sudbury and Wayland.

Sudbury continued to be a west-of-Boston rural farming town, essentially unchanged with a population of 3500, for the next 170 years. The official town map of the 1830s carried the family names, many of than direct descendants of town founders. Some of those names still appear on town records, although the family homesteads and lands have been sold for house sites.

The technological revolution in Massachusetts of post-World War II had a profound impact on Sudbury. Situated midway between Routes 128 (195) and 1495, in just 35 years the town became a "most desirable upper-middle-class-suburb" of Boston. Farming was replaced by subdivisions. Land values shot up 100 times. Typical new house prices rose twenty-fold. The town population multiplied by a factor of six, to l5,000, and in the process absorbed the initial influx of mobile younger marrieds with school and pre-school age children, producing today‘s more age-balanced population. Some light industry and commercial building also took place, but Sudbury today is basically a “bedroom" community.

What of First Parish during the last 190 years? We say 190, because the main part of the church building, which houses the sanctuary and parish hall, was built by the Town of Sudbury in 1796-97 at a cost of $6,025.93. In those days the Town Meeting House and the church building were one and the same. Town taxes provided for the building and the minister, and the Selectmen were deacons. As other faiths gathered, church and state in Sudbury were finally separated in 1836.

The First Parish of Sudbury was one of the last of the Eastern Massachusetts parishes to go "Unitarian." In 1837 the split took place, when the Reverend Rufus Hurlbut, his chosen protege and those of a like mind, walked down Concord Road and established the orthodox Congregational Church. In the subsequent court case, the Unitarians kept the building and the church records and called Reverend Linus Shaw in 1844 as their first Unitarian minister.

There have been other changes, and threats, to the proud building raised on "Rocky Plain," that became the Sudbury Center. In 1797, the Meeting House was built as one large (52' x 60') open room, with box pews on the ground floor and mezzanine seating above on three sides, North, East and South.

The minister spoke from a raised pulpit on the West side. In 1842, the south belfry was added and the main building divided into two floors: sanctuary on the upper, parish hall on the lower. The bronze bell dates from 1844, and the Town Clock, a gift of Sudbury schoolchildren, from 1873. The pipe organ was given by the Women's Alliance in 1897 (cost of $1,500). During the early 1900s, what is now the church office was a branch of the Goodnow Public Library, with Lucy Brackett as librarian.

Over the past forty-five years much work has been done on the church building, in addition to routine maintenance and repairs.

In 1938, the upper belfry structure which had weakened, was rebuilt in order to hold the bell safely. In 1939, the church was connected to town water, and central oil heat was installed in 1951 to replace two pot-bellied stoves. There were major interior renovations to the church building in the early 1960s. The Atkinson Religious Education building was constructed in 1964. For fire protection, a complete sprinkler system was installed in 1980.

In 1983, about half of the original (1797) chestnut sills were found to be dry-rotted and were replaced with pressure-treated southern yellow pine at a cost of $25,000.

Stories have been passed down through the years, bringing to life some of the first ministers. In its early days, Sunday worship at First Parish was a serious all-day affair for both members and minister. Perhaps twenty-five years of such sobriety became too much for James Sherman, second minister of First Parish, for in 1704 he was dismissed following an ecclesiastical trial for his "improper conduct." In contrast his successor, Israel Loring, was minister for the next 67 years, preaching his final sermon the week before he died at age 90. He is also renowned for having refused to baptize children born on Sunday, because he held the mistaken belief that babies are born on the same day of the week as conceived. When his own wife gave birth to twins on a Sunday, he reluctantly recanted, and retroactively baptized the many other "Sunday children." Other exceptional ministers include Ida Hultin, a woman who served from 1904 to 1915, and Dr. Alexander St. Ivanyi, who kept First Parish hopes alive from 1951-1955. Dr. St. Ivanyi, a former Bishop of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church was renowned as a leader of the anti-Nazi underground in his native Hungary.

During the pre- and post-World War II period, First Parish was at its lowest ebb, limping along with few members and part-time, shared ministers. The communion table (circa 1640) was sold for $1,000. In 1945 another church in town offered to merge with First Parish and take over the building, and a few years later the AUA offered to purchase the property for probable re-sale. The handful of devoted members refused both offers, citing the need for a liberal church in the community. Their perseverance coincided with the Route 128 economic explosion, and the rapid growth in town population ultimately resulted in an increase in church membership.

In 1957, with a budget of under $5,000, the church members called Carl Scovel, newly graduated from Harvard Divinity School, as their full-time minister. They were concerned, for his salary was $4,000, but optimistic. They knew he was the key to their future as a church. Membership grew, a Sunday school program for children was started, and an AUA-trained operating pledge drive in 1959 raised annual giving by a factor of nearly three. First Parish was once again alive and well.

When Carl was called to King's Chapel in 1967, the members themselves ran the church for the better part of a year. The successor they were searching for proved to be Michael Boardman, a young Starr King graduate from California, who remained until 1975, when he moved to the UU church in Brookline. Once again the members maintained the church until Jerry Goddard was called, later that same year. After ten years in our pulpit, Jerry left First Parish for a church in Springfield. Since September, 1985, Wayne Shuttee of New Haven, Connecticut, has been serving as interim minister.

The resurgence of First Parish in the last thirty years has been marked by:
- contemporary ministers who provide leadership and inspiration;
- major church building repairs and renovations, and loving care and maintenance of the beautiful church in Sudbury Center;
- the construction of the Atkinson Religious Education Building;
- the employment. of part-time professional staff: Religious Education Director, Music Director, Office Secretary, and Custodian;
- The amendment of the church by-laws to reflect changes in the UUA and the church needs;
- the institutionalizing of the coffee hour;
- The members' sharing of the jobs of trustee, summer preacher, committee member, canvasser, schoolteacher, choir member, caller, playwriter, cake-baker, handyman, and all the others that "make it happen."

In their own relaxed but confident style, today's members of First Parish of Sudbury, following the tradition of their forebears continue to build a loving and supportive church family.

History from 1986 Ministerial Search

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