[176] was altered to the ‘Cambridge and Woburn Baptist Church.’ The Woburn branch of the church gained more rapidly than the mother church; a new meeting-house was built in Woburn in 1794, and the organization became known solely as the ‘Woburn Baptist Church.’ In 1790 the society here had purchased ‘a spot five rods square’ of Ephraim Cooke, and erected a house of worship, now occupied as a dwelling-house, and situated at the east corner of Brattle Street. Here meetings were held more or less frequently as preaching could be obtained, and the parish organization was continued until greater encouragement offered. Stephen Cutter, by will dated March 4, 1816, left a legacy to the Society of $5,000, to be paid at the death of his wife Mary Cutter. She generously relinquished nearly one-half, eighteen years before the time, and by her will, dated Sept. 2, 1834, added in land and money, save a few small legacies, her whole estate, all amounting to $11,375.24, including the present commodious parsonage. An act of incorporation of the Society was obtained Dec. 14, 1816, and on Nov. 20, 1817, twenty-two persons, mostly connected with the existing church at Woburn, were by a council constituted the West Cambridge Baptist Church.1 On Sept. 9, 1828, a new meeting-house was dedicated in the present locality on land given by Mary Cutter. The Sabbath School was organized Oct. 21, 1828. A new and more commodious church edifice was dedicated March 31, 1853. The house is of the Gothic style of architecture, and was erected at the cost of $15,000, including an organ and other appurtenances. It was subjected to extensive repairs about 1871, at an expense of over $11,000. The ministers of the Society have been:—Thomas Green, 1783-93; position of minister vacant, 1794-1818; Benjamin C. Grafton, 1818-23; John Ormsby, 1824-27; Ebenezer Nelson, 1828-34; Appleton Morse and Charles Miller, 1834-38;2 Timothy C. Tingley, 1838-45; George J. Carleton, 1845-51; Joseph Banvard, 1851-53; Samuel B. Swaim, 1854-62; John Duncan, 1863-64; Amos Harris, 1865-75; Charles H. Spaulding, 1876-79.Universalist Society.—A Society of this denomination appears to have existed in the town as early as 1832, but without a regular established organization till Aug. 13, 1840, when it was voted to build a meeting-house, and a Society was organized under the name of the First Universalist Society in
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1 The names of the original members of the church, formed Nov. 20, 1817, were Daniel Brooks, Mary Cutter, Elizabeth Williams, Abigail Robbins, Deliverance Winship, Lydia Jones, Simeon Harrington, William Symmes, Nathan Russell, Jr., Seth Reed, Charles Mackintire, Martha Frost, Thomas H. Teel, Eliza Frost, Sally Putnam, Lucy Tufts, Leonard Cox, Susanna Crosby, Bathsheba Brooks, Rachel Dickson, Hannah Estabrook, Daniel Crouch. 22.
2 So given in the Arlington Baptist Church Book, but not recognized as such in the Massachusetts Registers of the time.
Boston: David Clapp and son. 564 Washington Street, 1880.
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