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South Parish Congregationalist Church

Walk beyond St. Mark's and turn right down Oak Street to State Street. South Parish Congregationalist Church is across the way, located at 9 Church Street, just off State Street. The 178-foot tower and spire reign over Augusta. The congregation has occupied three buildings over its history: the original meeting house was in Market Square (intersection of Water and Winthrop streets), and the subsequent buildings at the Church Street site.

 

South Parish Congregationalist Church is Augusta's oldest continuous church, tracing its beginnings to 1786 when the first ministers interviewed by the town preached at the meeting house. The first minister called was the Reverend Issac Foster, from Connecticut. Rebecca Foster, Augusta's first minister's wife, came with her husband to settle. Their stay is described in one town history as –brief and controversial," and the family left in 1788. One account of the Fosters' association with the early community can be found in A Midwife's Tale, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

The church claims eighteenth-century diarist and midwife Martha Ballard as one of its early members (although Martha was, at best, inconsistent in her attendance) and notes Ann Severence and Hannah Child as nineteenth-century missionaries.

The early church was organized and divided a number of times, primarily because of growth and changing town boundaries. A division in 1825 led to the establishment of the

Unitarian Church, which incorporated in 1826. The present-day building was dedicated in 1866. Eleven of the church's thirteen stained glass windows are from the Tiffany Studio in New York.

During the Civil War, the Augusta Ladies Aide Society gathered at South Parish (and at other locations) to perform tasks to support Maine Civil War Soldiers. They rolled bandages, made towels, and solicited donations of goods and money to support Maine soldiers.

 

Site #33.1 Sources:

 

Augusta, Maine Sesquicentennial. Special reprint of Daily Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine, Sesquicentennial Edition, Wednesday, July 30, 1947.

 

Douin, Anthony. Introduction to –Civil War Nurses," lecture by Linda Sudlow, 21 March 2001, Kennebec Historical Society Lecture Series, Lithgow Library, Augusta, Maine.

 

Faith Communities of Augusta, Maine - Past and Present. A City Bicentennial Project under the auspices of the Augusta Clergy Association, 1997.

 

North, James W. The History of Augusta Maine. Somesworth, NH: New England History Press, 1981. New forward by Edwin A. Churchill. Originally published in 1870 by Clapp and North of Augusta, ME.

 

Sudlow, Lynda L. A Vast Army of Women. Maine's Uncounted Forces in the American Civil War. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, c2000.

 

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1990; Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, 1991 (paperback).

 

 

 
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