History
Two hundred years from its founding, the First Congregational Church continues to thrive, providing a spiritual home to its members and friends, financial and humane support to those people who are in need, a community meeting place for many organizations and events, mission trips, music, educational programs for adults and young ones; the list goes on.
To quote from the foreword of the 1905 Centennial booklet, "This church has been a benediction to the town. It has pointed the way to God and heaven to three generations. For a hundred years many of the first families of the town have been either members of it, or of its parish. Its Christian influence has not only been felt by the community and the town at large, but its good influence has gone forth with its sons and daughters to other states and countries where Providence led them. The town of Camden is a better town for what this church has been and still is….The church membership today is nineteen times larger than on Sept. 11, 1805. If, at the end of the next century of its history, its membership will be nineteen times larger than today, what a multitude of communicants it will have!"
The First Congregational Church was founded September 11, 1805. In those 200 years much has transpired.
1805-1855
In the beginning there was the plantation of Cambden, (sic) in the county of Hancock, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 72nd town in what became Maine was incorporated in 1791. Religion was taken seriously by the Commonwealth, and by 1794 citizens were required to pay a fine if they neglected to support a religious order.
In response to a fine for not having a minister for three years, in 1796 the townsmen voted in $100 for the support of the gospel. Some Camden residents erected a meeting house on the northeast corner of Park and Elm streets in 1799, and this became the earliest home of the First Congregational Church.
The meetinghouse built, it took until 1804 for a minister to begin preaching there on a regular basis. The Rev. Thomas Cochran was asked to consider becoming the official minister the following year. According to Dyer, "An Ecclesiastical Council assembled here on September 11, 1805, to form a Congregational Church and at the same time ordain the minister." His salary was $500 a year, paid for by taxes.
The church got off to a rocky start, with Cochran falling out of favor after a few years. Attendance stopped and he left town in 1814, but not without some rancor. He sued for damages in the amount of $1,400 and won, which the town then had to raise. People apparently remembered this incident for three or four generations.
It took 14 years for the next minister to be "settled," or situated. In 1828 Darwin Adams of Mt. Vernon, New Hampshire, was given a five-year contract, after which he asked to leave. Temperance was being introduced at this time as well. The church was without a minister for about a year.
The present Congregational Church was built in 1834 for approximately $5,000. In 1870 it was remodeled.
1855-1905
The next 50 years witnessed the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Industrial Age. Six ministers served the church, including the Rev. Lewis Darenydd Evans, who served longer than any other minister in the history of the church, with 25 years. He had worked in the coal mines of Wales before coming to America to get his education in the ministry. He helped celebrate the church's 100th anniversary
The Ladies Circle was organized in 1891. They kept records, and historian Dyer discovered through these that the Ladies Circle at one time owned 17/30ths of the parsonage, which was the house next to the church on Free Street. 1896 plans revealed a plant sale to be held, which over the next few years grew to "include selling ice cream, seedlings, cake, aprons (fancy and plain), candy, Japanese art, and a fancy table."
At the end of the church's first 100 years, a three-day celebration was held. The front page of the September 15, 1905, Camden Herald was devoted exclusively to the event. It began with Sunday worship, both morning and evening. Monday evening was given over to an historical address, and on Tuesday a social reception was held for about 200 people at the Masonic Hall, with a banquet and after dinner speeches. An 80-page historical booklet was published by the church in honor of the event.
1906-1955
Another 50 years rolled by, but the start of them saw the Ladies Circle build a new parish house on the site of the former one, which was torn down. By 1908 it began to be used for town gatherings.
Edna St. Vincent Millay attended Sunday school at the First Congregational church and read her poems there.
In 1918 the Spanish flu epidemic struck Camden, as it did the rest of the world. The Chapel became a makeshift hospital. Camden lost 25 young people in a year.
The church was extensively remodeled in 1925 and also bought the once privately owned pews, ending the practice of pew-renting, "an obnoxious system," according to the then-church treasurer.
Good Cheer was formed in 1929, a women's service group that met in the evening. In 1952 there were about 40 members. In 1990 Ladies Circle and Good Cheer merged to become the Women's Fellowship.
By 1955, the need for a new parish house was apparent. Traffic had increased substantially on Elm Street, and it made sense to add onto the existing church structure. The result was the church much as we know it today, at a cost of about $100,000, built with "builder's shares" by the parishioners.
The 150th anniversary of the church was held in August 1955, from Sunday to Sunday, with past ministers in attendance at services and suppers. It included a church fair, concert, choral festival, open houses and coffee hours, as well as a rededication service for the congregation. An anniversary newspaper was produced.
1956-present
The final 50 years brings Camden's oldest church to its 200th birthday in 2005. The world has seen more changes in these 50 years than was seen in the 175 preceding. Men walked on the moon; black and white TV gave way to color and home entertainment just kept on growing from video tapes to DVD, electronic games, computers, and their endless electronic spin-offs. The church stood through the '50s with Elvis, Eisenhower, and the jitterbug. The '60s bring back memories of upheaval, with anti-war protests, civil rights marches, hippies, political unrest and violence, women's liberation, psychedelic music, and the Beatles. The '70s, the '80s, the '90s. Stock market booms and busts. Energy crises. routine space shuttle trips. Frequent flyer miles. Remember the end of the Cold War and the destruction of the Berlin Wall? The Vietnam War and Desert Storm were fought, and after 9-11 we entered the current war with Iraq. In 2005, even as the church celebrated its bicentennial, a cell tower was being installed by Verizon Wireless in the church steeple - a sure sign of the times!
In 1976 Rev. Donald Henderson helped initiate the first newsletter, then called "The Church Corner", edited by Bob and Nancy Wright. Today we have The Beacon, edited by our church administrator, Nan Smith.
The church maintains a popular thrift store, Heavenly Threads, the profits of which fund many worthy causes, including the Coastal Workshop, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, Hospitality House, New Hope for Women, 63 Washington St., Rockland Soup Kitchen, and Coastal Hospice. Besides sponsoring the thrift store, the church provides outreach through the Shields Mission Project, S.O.S. room, the Free Soup Lunch program and social action forums.
A prayer chain, headed by Wendy Wickenden, provides a wonderful network of prayers for those in need of God's help and comfort.
A community Thanksgiving dinner, started in 1977, continues today, along with the annual "Turkey Feathers," in which church-goers select "feathers" from a construction paper turkey, indicating which foods they would like to buy and donate to the holiday food boxes distributed to those in need. At Christmas, the Dove Tree enables us to select and purchase gifts for families who would otherwise do without.
Once a year our typically plain New England church undergoes a transformation. As the season of Lent begins in preparation for the joyous occasion of Easter, the sanctuary miraculously dons the colors of spring when the felt banners designed by the late Abbott Pattison are placed on the walls next to the windows. Pattison, a well recognized American sculptor, was a dedicated member of our church.
The banners, which are quite sculptural, are made of 100 percent wool felt, sometimes three layers deep. Professional seamstress Alice Farnham, then a member of the church and an employee of Carol and Skip Thompson, also church members who owned Coffin's clothing, did the sewing at the clothing store. It took her about 60 hours of time, as she recalls, and the time was donated to the cause.
Several missions for youth have taken place in recent years, including trips to Puerto Rico, Mississippi, Buffalo, N.Y. In 2005, the youth mission trip went to Honduras and is next planning a trip to Montana in 2008.
The church has been able to help many less fortunate citizens of Knox County thanks to the very generous bequest of Dorothy Shields. Debbi Hitchings is the administrator of the Shields Mission Project, which helps provides shelter, food, warmth, clothing, transportation, education, childcare, health care, and more to those clients who are referred to us by other local organizations. Our hope is to enable them to live a productive and self-sustaining life.
Former pastor Glen Rainsley wrote in the preface to the 1996 church directory, " 'Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices.' Those words, written by Martin Rinckart during the Reformation, remind us that constant gratitude, expressed with our whole being, is the most fitting and faithful response to God's grace. That grace has been very much in evidence throughout the long life of our church. Barbara Dyer's excellent History of First Congregational Church, our faith-family's chronicle, concludes with this line of praise: 'We give thanks unto God for our blessings.'"
So much has changed since 1805, yet the heart of the Congregational church remains dedicated to the glory of God and goodwill to all people. We can again close our latest historical notes with those good words -
We give thanks unto God for our blessings.