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| © 2001 First United Church of Christ (Congregational) of Milford |
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A History of
First United Church of Christ,
Milford, Connecticut
On August 22, 1639, The First Church of Christ in Milford, now the First
United Church of Christ (Congregational) was organized in New Haven
by The Reverend Peter Prudden and a company of fifteen families. They
arrived in Boston on July 31, 1637, from England. A year later they
sailed to what is now New Haven and held their first religious service
under an oak tree on Sunday, April 25, 1638, with the founding settlers
of that community.
The First Meeting House
Desiring a church and a colony of their own, they purchased land for this
purpose on February 12, 1639, but they made no attempt to settle the land
that winter. Their church was organized before moving to Wepawaug, which
is now Milford. Originally, the government of the town was a Theocracy
- a small republic independent of all outside authority. God was their
only King and the Bible their only law book. Only Church members were
permitted the right to vote and hold office. When Milford, as part of
the New Haven Colony, merged with Connecticut Colony in 1665, the lawwas
changed and ownership of property became the basis of citizenship in place
of church membership.
The
early pastors of the Milford Church were well educated, numbering among
them graduates of Cambridge, England; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst,
Dartmouth, and Oberlin.
Following the great revival of Edwards and Whitefield, and a religious
and political controversy of the "Old Lights" and the "New
Lights," a division in the membership of the Milford Church arose,
as a result of which the Second Church, or Plymouth Church, was founded
in 1741. The first pastor of the new church was Job Prudden, great grandson
of Peter Prudden, founder and first pastor of the First Church. They built
Second Church (Plymouth Church) across the river on the location of our
present Plymouth Building. This church continued for a period of 185 years
of active and honorable religious service to the community. By that time
the causes of the original division had been forgotten. In 1926, under
the leadership of the Reverend Charles Atkins of The Plymouth Church,
the animosities of the past were buried, yielding to spiritual, emotional,
and financial necessity, and the two churches became one again. The name
of the one new church became The Church of Christ, Congregational.
On January 25, 1961, the church membership ratified the constitution and accepted membership in the newly-formed denomination, The United Church of Christ. At that time our name was changed to its present name: The First United Church of Christ (Congregational).
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