Cumberland County ME Archives Church Records.....EARLY CHURCHES IN PORTLAND ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/me/mefiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: David Colby Young NeonipME@aol.com March 29, 2007, 2:34 pm EARLY CHURCHES IN PORTLAND Sprague's Journal of Maine History Volume 9, April, May, June, 1921 No. 2 Page 81-83 EARLY CHURCHES IN PORTLAND (By Florence Whittlesey Thompson) Prior to the Revolutionary War there were but two churches in that part of Falmouth which is now Portland. One was the old First Parish, a rough log house on India Street near Middle Street, in which Parson Smith began his noted pastorate in 1727, and which was replaced in 1740 by a new wooden structure on the site of the present First Parish Church on Congress Street. The other was Old St. Paul's and Episcopal Church on Middle Street at the corner of Church Street. This, also a wooden structure, was built in 1765. Old St. Paul's was an off-shoot of the First Parish, but not its first one, for there were others in neighboring villages, but St. Paul's was the first that was not Trinitarian Congregational. There were many reasons why certain of Parson Smith's parish- ioners sought another church. Some did not like his preaching. Some objected to paying the salaries of two ministers, those of Parson Smith and his new colleague Rev. Mr. Deane, but many were of English birth and had been brought up in the Church of England and had only been attending the First Parish Church because there was no other church. In 1763 the brake came. Forty men, many of whom were men of affairs and position in the town, organized themselves into a parish and asked the Rev. Mr. Wiswell of the Congregational Church of New Casco to be their minister. He accepted their call, went to England for Episcopal ordination, and returned to be the first minister of Old St. Paul's where he remained until the church and Portland were burned in 1775 by the British. Those members of the new parish who had been members of the First Parish continued to be taxed for the support of the mother church, but in 1772 the First Parish returned to Mr. Wiswell the money that had been collected from St. Paul's and two years later joined St. Paul's in a petition to the General Court in Boston to abolish the tax. In the meantime, the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts con- tributed twenty pounds a year towards the support of the minis- ter of St. Paul's. The Revolutionary War had a most disastrous effect upon both the First Parish and the Episcopal Church, but especially upon the latter. As most of its members were royalists, many, including the minister, left the country. Parson Smith's house being burned, he moved to Windham to live with his son. His colleague, Mr. Deane, moved to Gorham and there were only occasional services held by them in Portland. The First Parish Church, because of its location (then considered far up town) escaped the ravages of the fire that destroyed the lower town. Although it was badly shattered by the enemy's firing it was not beyond repair and remained the meeting place for Congregationalists until the present beautiful stone church was built in 1826. There were no Episcopal services during the war and it was not until 1783 that the remnant of the Episcopal Church met to reorganize. In 1787 a second edifice was erected which was of wood like the first and on the site of the old church. Owing to the distressing effects of the war, the church was in a struggling condition for fifteen years or more. In 1803 a splendid group of men whose names are still known in Portland history took the church in hand. They sold the church and lot at public auction, and bought another lot a block further up in the street where they built a new church on Middle Street facing Pearl Street. This was a brick church with a mas- sive tower and an open belfry in which hung a deep toned bell. This church continued to be know as St. Paul's until 1839 when the parish was again reorganized under the name of St. Stephen's, by which name it was known until it burned in the great Portland fire of 1866. In 1820 during the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Ten Broeck, while this organization was still called St. Paul's, the Diocese was formed -- the same year in which the State of Maine was admitted to the Union -- so that in 1920 both the Diocese and the State celebrate their Centenary. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/me/cumberland/churches/earlychu24gbb.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mefiles/ File size: 4.8 Kb