On this day in 1809, the cornerstone for Park Street Church was laid. Five years prior, in 1804, a small group of Bostonians began to meet for weekly lectures and prayer. This group, called the “Religious Improvement Society,” organized the charter of Park Street Church in February of 1809 and three months later, on May 1, laid the church’s cornerstone.
Since its founding, the church has been an active participant in Boston’s religious and cultural life. Early in the church’s life, Bostonians referred to the church as “brimstone corner,” either because of the fire and brimstone preaching, or because gunpowder was stored in the church’s basement during the war of 1812.
The church wasn’t only known for fire and brimstone, however. In 1815, the Handel and Hayden Society was founded at the church. In 1826, the American Temperance Society was founded at the church, and in the same year, Edward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and a strong abolitionist, became the church’s pastor. Three years later, on July 4, 1829, William Lloyd Garrison used the church to make his first public statement against slavery.
In the 20th century, Park Street Church played key roles in the founding of the Boston branch of the NAACP, War Relief (now World Relief), Gordon-Conwell and Fuller Theological Seminaries, and the religious publication Christianity today.
The archival records of Park Street Church are available through the Congregational Library, learn more here
Park Street Church, circa 1970s, Peter H. Dreyer slide collection, Collection #9800.007, City of Boston Archives.
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