History
The congregation was founded in 1690 as a Puritan parish church that was an official branch of the Massachusetts state church. In 1696 the first meeting house was constructed. In the early 1820s the congregation split and was restructured with the 'orthodox' Trinitarian members leaving to form a separate congregation. The current and fifth building of the congregation was constructed in 1894 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The Rev. William Ellery Channing gave his first sermon at 1st Parish Medford on August 8th, 1802 "Silver and gold have I none, but such I give to you." The Rev. Thomas Starr King did his student ministry under Hosea Ballou II at 1st Universalist before Ballou moved to become the first president of Tufts College in 1852.
The First Universalist Church and the Hillside Universalist consolidated with the First Parish Church (Unitarian) in 1961 to form The Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford (or UU Medford) a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and has been a Welcoming Congregation since 1996.
As of 2010, its minister is the Rev. Hank Peirce. The Director of Religious Education is Kimberly Wootan. Thom Lissey is Director of Music.
Read more about this topic: Unitarian Universalist Church Of Medford And The Osgood House
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“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)