Historical Notes

Castine's Meeting House
In 1790, when George Washington was in the first year of his presidency, construction began on our meeting house. At that time, Maine was still a district of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Castine was part of the town of Penobscot.

In fact, many in Penobscot were unhappy about plans to build a meeting house on the Castine peninsula. In 1789 the town of Penobscot had begun construction of a meeting house at the ferry crossing on the Bagaduce River. Those who lived on the Castine peninsula did not want to travel that far to go to church, and in 1790 began raising funds to build their own meeting house. A resolution brought before the Penobscot selectmen called this plan an "immoral measure," and "an high insult" to the inhabitants of Penobscot. Nonetheless, land was obtained from Capt. John Perkins, money was raised, and construction began on the peninsula's meeting house. The new meeting house on the Castine peninsula would serve the Second Parish of Penobscot.

In April, 1795, the town of Penobscot called Jonathan Powers to serve the Congregational church there. There was active opposition to his settlement and ordination because of his conservative Calvinistic theology. Nonetheless, he was ordained and installed in August of 1795. Rev. Powers preached principally in Penobscot, and from time-to-time at the meeting house on the Castine peninsula.

On February 10, 1796, citizens of the Castine peninsula met in the meeting house to inaugurate the measures which resulted in the incorporation of the town of Castine. The meeting house became property of the town of Castine, which paid $1,000, about half the cost of the original structure, to Penobscot. So in 1796 the Second Parish of Penobscot became the First Parish, or First Congregational Society, of Castine.

In September, 1796, the First Parish of Castine asked the Rev. Micah Stone to become the minister for a $400 annual salary, and a settlement of $800. Rev. Stone did not accept the invitation. In 1798 a call was extended to William Mason, a graduate of Harvard College, to become pastor of the town at an annual salary of $350, and settlement of $800. Mr. Mason – who was not a Calvinist – accepted the call, and was ordained in Castine on October 10, 1798.

When the meeting house was completed in 1798 it had a high pulpit with a sounding-board, a broad center aisle, galleries on three sides, and upper and lower rows of windows. Hymns were accompanied by a bass viol in the "singing seats" in the back balcony. A stove was added in 1817.

The steeple was in front on the outside of the building. In 1802 a bell, cast by Paul Revere & Son, was hung in the steeple.

Here, on Feb. 22, 1800, a day of national mourning was observed for the death of George Washington.

When British troops seized Castine during the War of 1812, Parson Mason was chosen to carry the flag of truce to the enemy. Not owning a white flag, he used his wife's best linen tablecloth. While the British occupied the town 1814-15, their officers and soldiers occasionally worshiped with Rev. Mason's congregation.

Town meetings and state and national elections were held here until 1831. Court sessions were also held in the meeting house when trials were too large for the court house.

Schism
During the 36 years that Parson Mason served our congregation, a controversy was raging in the Congregational churches of New England. In 1785 King's Chapel in Boston, the oldest Anglican church in New England, eliminated references to the Trinity in their liturgy. More distressing to conservative Congregationalists, Henry Ware, a liberal, was appointed to the chair of divinity at Harvard College in 1805. Liberal Congregationalists such as Ware believed that Jesus was not equal to God and never claimed to be so, that the Doctrine of the Trinity was unscriptural (the word Trinity never appears in the Bible), that humans have the potential for good as well as evil, and that reason should be used when reading the Bible.

The conservative party, who came to be called orthodox, Calvinist, or Trinitarian, were outraged. In 1807 Calvinists established Andover Theological School to train orthodox Congregational clergy, as Harvard was now too liberal. Calvinist ministers refused to exchange pulpits with liberal ministers, and the orthodox clergy began calling the liberals by the worst name they could think of, "Unitarians."

In 1819 William Ellery Channing, the leading liberal preacher in Boston, delivered a powerful sermon titled, "Unitarian Christianity." Channing boldly accepted the Unitarian name and set forth what the Unitarians believed. His sermon was reprinted and widely circulated in pamphlet form.

One year after Channing's sermon, in July of 1820, orthodox members of the First Parish of Castine, along with the very orthodox Rev. Jonathan Fisher of Blue Hill, met with Parson Mason. The orthodox party said that Rev. Mason's meeting house was "not a church of Christ," that Mason was "erroneous" and "not a gospel minister." They complained that Mason failed to preach the sinful depravity of man, "election" (predestination), and the deity of Christ.

Parson Mason said he was preaching reconciliation, was avoiding certain doctrines that he found to be divisive, and that the Calvinists were teaching hatred and division. Mason said that good conduct and a correct heart were more important than "a peculiar [particular] view of the Gospel." Rather than preaching doctrines, Rev. Mason was preaching Christian living.

Being unable to reach agreement with Rev. Mason, the conservatives left our church and established the Trinitarian Congregational Parish of Castine. In 1828 the Trinitarians called the Rev. John Crosby to be their first minister. Some members of the old First Parish of Penobscot joined the Trinitarian Parish, as their theology was Calvinist and the Penobscot church had no pastor after 1813.

After the withdrawal of the Trinitarians, the First Parish of Castine became known as The First Congregational Society, Unitarian. With two churches in town, and as town meetings were no longer held in the meeting house, the old meeting house was now too large. In 1831-32 the building was gutted, the two side balconies were removed, the windows were rebuilt to the present design, the pews were changed to eliminate the center aisle and add the present aisles, and the steeple was redesigned and rebuilt. The original Paul Revere bell was replaced by a larger bell made by Joseph Warren Revere, Paul's son.

Parson Mason stayed as minister to our church for 36 years. In 1834 he retired and moved to Bangor, where he died in 1847.

After Parson Mason
After Mason retired, the First Congregational Society, Unitarian, was served by three Unitarian pastors who stayed one or two years each. Then, from 1838 to 1850, a Universalist Society and Universalist preachers occupied the meeting house, with some members of the First Parish attending. The Universalists taught "universal salvation," the doctrine that a loving God would not condemn any of God's children to eternal torture in hell.

The Unitarian Society continued to have responsibility for the meeting house, and held regular business meetings. But after 1850 few religious services were held in the meeting house until 1866 when the Rev. William Savary and the Rev. James Freeman Clarke each conducted services. In 1867 the Unitarians invited the Rev. George F. Clark to be the settled minister.

In 1869 the rear balcony was removed, and the church's first pipe organ was installed. It was replaced with a Hook & Hastings tracker organ in 1898. Our third pipe organ, a Moller organ, was installed in 1980, although the old pipes and 1869 mahogany case were retained. The Parish House was added behind the meeting house in 1902, much of the money for its construction having been raised by the Women's Alliance.

For several years in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Trinitarian and Unitarian churches met together as "The Interchurch Parish," always served by Congregationalist ministers. Eventually this arrangement did not meet the needs of the Unitarians, who re-asserted their independence.

In the 1980s we began sharing a minister with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth. In 2006 we called our own full-time minister for the first time in several decades.

Because many people found the name "First Congregational Society, Unitarian" to be confusing and outdated, in 1990 we changed our name to Castine Unitarian Church. In 2006 we changed it again in order to acknowledge that the Unitarian and Universalist denominations had consolidated in 1961 as the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. We are now the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Castine – although we are continuous with the original First Parish or First Congregational Society of Castine. Our building, of course, is "the meeting house."