Existing comment:
United First Parish Church:
The congregation of the United First Parish Church was founded in 1639. Among its first members were Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright who were banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for having ideas which the parent church in Boston found dangerous. As was a New England tradition, the church was also the town's meeting house. The church was "Puritan in faith and Congregational in governance" until 1750, when liberal or Unitarian thought advocated the separation of church and state, and the church has been Unitarian in philosophy ever since.
The congregation's first structure was located about 1/2 mile south of the present structure. By 1666 there was another building made of stone with a bell. A large meeting house was built on the site of the present structure in 1732. When John Adams was preparing his will in 1820, the First Parish Church was too small for the congregation. In his will, John Adams deeded 220 acres of land to the town with the provision that the income was to be used for, "the completion and furnishing of a temple to be built of stone." Construction began in 1827, one year after John Adams' death, and the church was dedicated the next year in 1828. The Church was designed by Alexander Parris who also designed Quincy Market in Boston. After his parents' deaths, John Quincy Adams arranged to have them interred into a small crypt beneath the church. Charles Francis Adams in turn had his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Quincy Adams, interred along side John and Abigail in the crypt.
Today, the United First Parish Church is on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Park Service in cooperation with the parish has made the church a part of the Adams National Historical Park's interpretive program. Visitors can now experience the important place that the United First Parish Church played in the lives of a family who through the course of four generations greatly contributed to the founding and strengthening of this nation. |