First Congregational Church in Woburn
781-933-1642
The History of our congregation
We were founded in 1642. Our first head deacon, Edward Johnson, wrote one of the first histories written in what would be the USA, he was the city clerk, often time the representative to the Massachusetts General Court, and had a license to trade with the Pennobscotts in what is now Lowell.
Towards the end of his history (The Wonder Working Providence) he narrates how our congregation was formed and some of the earliest history here.
There are two early graveyards in Woburn. In the 1880s the Woburn Head Librarian made a list of the epitaphs and wrote a little blurb on each of the 'occupants'. Note that the first stone is 50 years after the founding of the city, so none of the original settlers are represented.
This painting is in the Woburn Library and depicts the two ordinations of our first pastor, Thomas Carter. The first ordination was done by the Woburn deacons, but the neighboring and metropolitan clergy (and so, Governor Winthrop) thought that they should have been the ordinators, so Carter was ordained a second time by the holier high and mighty of the little colony.
In the 1800s the pastor of the Burlington church wrote a history of Woburn - as you can read for yourself, his rendition of certain incidents are a bit different than Johnson's.
Having trouble getting it on the site; Watch this space for Sewell's History of Woburn.
To round off the historical worth of this site for those readers who might be into early history (with a source that has only a little to do with our church), I have found the 'soldiers and sailors of King Philip's War'
PDFs courtesy of Archive.org
