The church congregation was established in 1630, when the settlers on the
Arbella arrived at the site of present-day
Charlestown, Massachusetts.
John Wilson was the first minister, and the only minister while the church was in Charlestown. Two years later, they constructed a
meeting house across the
Charles River near what is now
State Street in Boston, and Wilson was officially installed as minister there. In 1633
John Cotton arrived from England, and was a teaching elder at the church, helping to establish the foundation of the
Congregational Church, the official
state church of Massachusetts. His philosophies influenced
John Owen, chaplain to
Oliver Cromwell. Massachusetts Bay Colony pastors occasionally visited and preached in each other's churches. First Church pastors gave guest
sermons at other churches at the colony's settlements;
Governor Winthrop accompanied his pastor when walking twenty-five miles to deliver a sermon at
Plymouth. In 1677
Dorcas ye blackmore, a freed slave, became the first African American allowed to become a member of the church. In the 18th century,
Charles Chauncy was a minister at First Church for sixty years, where he gained a reputation for opposing what he believed was the emotionalism of
Jonathan Edwards during the
Great Awakening. A schism developed at the turn of the 19th century: this Trinitarian Christian church eventually transformed into a
Unitarian congregation by the mid-19th century, as did many of the other state churches in Massachusetts. Massachusetts' state churches (largely Unitarian and Congregationalist, including First Church), were officially disaffiliated from the government in 1833. In the 19th century, the First Church moved to
Back Bay in Boston. The building at 66 Marlborough Street in Boston dated from 1868, and was designed by Boston architects
William Robert Ware and
Henry Van Brunt.
Second Church, also known as the "Church of the Mathers", was founded in 1649 when the population spread to the North End and justified an additional congregation sited closer to those individuals' homes. From 1664 to 1741, its clergy consisted of
Increase Mather,
Cotton Mather, and Samuel Mather. Both churches were examples of the westward movement of Boston churches from the crowded, older downtown area to the newer, more fashionable Back Bay. This area was developed for residential use after lowlands were filled in during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second Church's Back Bay location in the Fenway was sold (it is now owned by the Ruggles St. Baptist congregation) just before the merger. After a disastrous fire in 1968, First Church and Second Church merged and built a new building at the 66 Marlborough Street location. ==Architecture==