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Chapter 9: public buildings.
First meeting-house.
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First meeting-house, 1696. |
during the first years of their residence in
Medford, our pious ancestors were not sufficiently numerous and rich to support a minister of the gospel; hence they joined the churches of
Cambridge,
Charlestown,
Watertown,
Woburn, and
Malden.
That they had preaching in the town at funerals and baptisms, is most probable; but the loss of our earliest records prevents our stating any specific action on the subject till about 1690, when the desire to build a meeting-house became strong and effectual.
They worshipped in private rooms; and we find a vote of the town to “pay
Thomas Willis thirty shillings for the use of his rooms for one year.”
January 17, 1693, we find the following record:--
At a general town-meeting of the inhabitants of Medford, being fifteen days warned, voted that there shall be a meeting-house erected, to be finished the first of October following, on the land of Mr. Thomas Willis, near the gate by Marble Brook, on a rock on the north side of Woburn Road. It shall be seven and twenty feet long, four and twenty feet wide, and fifteen feet between joints.
