ContentsScope and Contents of the Collection
Parish minutes and records (volume) 1831-1887 Parish Treasurers book of records (volume) 1871-1916 Trustees book (volume) 1885-1938 Deeds, Charter, and Legal Documents 1800-1939 Articles of Faith and Covenant n.d. Sermons--Rev. S.G. Hitchcock 1848 Sermons--Rev. Colton 1873-1879 |
Enfield Congregational Church Records, 1800-1939Finding AidFinding aid prepared by Kenneth Fones-Wolf.Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.2002
Administrative InformationAcquired from Donald Howe, 1960. Processed by Ken Fones-Wolf, November 1984. Preferred CitationCite as: Enfield Congregational Church Records (MS 11). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst. The collection is open for research. Return to the Table of Contents Historical NoteWithin fifteen years of the incorporation of the town of Enfield in 1816, members of the Greenwich Congregational Church South Parish (established in 1786) reorganized to establish the Enfield Congregational Church. They applied to Enfield Constable Orum Hanks in 1831 to post a warrant for a meeting of the Enfield parish and acquired the services of Josiah Curtis and Samuel Clapp as minister and assistant minister. The land upon which the Enfield Congregational Church was built was donated by Captain Joseph Hooker, grandfather of the prominent Civil War general. Throughout its history, the membership of the Congregational Church approached 300, about one quarter of the town's population. The Church also served as the social and cultural center of the town and sponsored a Women's Missionary Society. The Church went out of existence in 1939 when the town was taken for the Quabbin Reservoir. The chapel bell from the Church was installed in the New Salem Central Congregational Church in 1938. Enfield was among the Western Massachusetts towns abolished in 1938 to allow the Swift River Valley to be flooded, thereby creating the Quabbin Reservoir to provide Boston with water. Return to the Table of Contents Scope and Contents of the CollectionDeeds, charters, and other legal documents concerning church property and accounts (1800-1939); detailed minutes of parish meetings (1831-1887), the parish treasurer's record book (1871-1916), and the parish trustees' account book (1885-1938), including the administration of the will of Henry Fobes; articles of faith and covenant (n.d.), the church manual (1927), a manuscript sermon of Reverend S. G. Hitchcock (1848), the sermons of Rev. Colton (1873-1879), an historical sermon (1916) commemorating the celebration of Enfield's Centennial by Reverend F.B. Richards, and church bulletins (1874-1883). Return to the Table of Contents Search TermsReturn to the Table of Contents
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