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[17] The location was a convenient one; besides, it was free. The majority of the parishioners lived within a half-mile. Sunday trains did not run. It probably never occurred to these people that they ever would. Therefore the noise of passing trains on the Sabbath was not considered. A good proportion of the members of the new parish had been connected with other churches in East Cambridge and Cambridgeport, a long way off, and the idea of having a church home in their immediate vicinity, we can readily believe, was highly gratifying and thoroughly appreciated. When on April 10 a meeting was held, there had been added to the list of members the names of John Thorning, Augustus Hitchings, Henry Locke, Seward Dodge, Robert Hollingsworth, Eben S. Harmon, and Joseph Elliot. It was at this meeting,—less than two months from the date of the organization of the parish,—that it was voted ‘That the Rev. George H. Emerson be and hereby is invited to the pastoral charge of the First Universalist Society of Somerville, to take effect the first day of May, 1854.’ There is nothing in the records of the parish to show that Mr. Emerson accepted the call, but we know that he became the pastor of the young society, and that he ministered unto it until 1859. In May of the year 1854, the committee appointed to solicit subscriptions for the building of a suitable church reported that $1,000 had been subscribed. ‘This amount being deemed sufficient to warrant success,’ the construction of the chapel went forward to completion, and the annual meeting of the parish in March, 1855, was held in the new building. The alacrity which characterized their movements and their promptness in raising the necessary funds has always been a characteristic of this society. Up to 1859 the records show an increase of only six members,—Charles Kirkpatrick, A. J. Tilson, David Sanborn, John Mandall, B. S. Binney, T. B. Wilson. It is
Published by the Parish. 1905.
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