The history of the Congregational Church is the history of Colonial New England.
Before the birth of the nation and the separation of church and state, the plain Congregational churches that date to the time of the Pilgrims and are found in every community in the region chronicled just about every aspect of life.
Yet that history remains largely scattered and hidden, tucked away in damp, unexplored corners of church buildings from the coast to the mountains.
Now, with the help of a more than $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities being announced on Monday, the Boston-based Congregational Library and Archives Hidden Histories project is locating, securing and digitizing church records from 1630 to 1800 and putting them online for anyone to peruse for free.
Some records are already online, but the new grant will allow the project to digitize an additional 18,000 documents and transcribe about 7,000 of them, said James Cooper, director of the Hidden Histories project.
The church was the dominant religion in Colonial New England and the focal point of every community, Cooper said.
And because of that, the records contain more than just information about births, baptisms, marriages and deaths.
"Essentially, everyone was a Congregationalist at that time," he said. "Almost anything that happened in the community went through the doors of the church. If two people had a squabble, you didn't go to court, you went before the minister and tried to settle it."
And fortunately, the ministers, often the town's sole record keeper, wrote everything down. Often in meticulous detail.
"They provide an amazing insight into the lives and minds of ordinary folks," Cooper said.
The documents are of immeasurable value to anyone "exploring political culture, social history, linguistics, epidemiology and climatology ... as well as to genealogists and members of the public interested in a range of subjects," The National Endowment for the Humanities said in its announcement.
The Congregational Library and Archives already has the records of about 40 churches online. But most of them are from Massachusetts.
The grant will help the project branch into the rest of New England, Executive Director Margaret Bendroth said.
"This is a very big deal for us," she said. "This is an affirmation of so much work and time and effort and expertise."
Cooper, a professor emeritus of history at Oklahoma State University, has spent almost three decades tracking down the records, often forgotten by modern day congregations.
"A staggering amount of the records are scattered in small local libraries, historical societies and still within churches and historians haven't been able to use them because they are utterly inaccessible," Cooper said.
They are crumbling, rotting and water stained.
He's found them stuffed in pantries next to cans of tomato sauce; wedged into coat closets; and in a safe to which no one associated with the church had the combination. In one case, a church member put the records in a bank, and then died without telling anyone where they were.
"These records are an absolute gold mine," Cooper said.
Who are the Congregationalists?
According to the Congregational Library & Archives' website, the Protestant reformers of the 16th century — the Puritans — established a "godly commnwealth" of locally governed churches once they arrived here, in the New World. As a Protestant denomination, their services were simple forms of worship, governed by the people of the congregation. "Built on strong community bonds, the Congregational churches went on to exercise a broad influence on American culture, both in the world of ideas and in efforts for social reform."
Congregational churches exist today within the United Church of Christ, and in two continuing bodies, the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.
FLORIDA CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES
Volusia County – New Smyrna Beach, specifically – happens to be home to the oldest Congregational church in Florida.
The United Church of Christ of New Smyrna Beach, located on the same site at 203 Washington St. since 1889, was established in 1875 by the Rev. Charles G. Selleck.
In 2015 at its 140th anniversary worship service, Volusia County legislator Deb Denys, who represents New Smyrna Beach, presented current pastor, the Rev. Dr. Diane Langworthy with a proclamation recognizing its long history.
UCCNSB is not a large congregation, but it is an active one in Southeast Volusia County. It's community outreach projects are many – from being one of the founding member of the Gifts of Love Community Food Bank to social justice issues including a stand for sensible gun legislation and an advocate of the LGBTQ community.
Longtime member of the church and current Outreach Committee chair, Gerie Spencer, has a passion for preserving UCCNSB's history.
"Sometimes I think, 'Who cares?'" she says about preserving her church history. "But, I think it's important. It's a guide to our past... it tells us who we were and how we're tied to the community."
Spencer, 85, who jokingly says she has been an active member of UCCNSB for so long (since 1982) that she has held every position except janitor and pastor. In addition to chairing Outreach, she is a member of several other committees and organizes the church's fundraising dinners. She also volunteers in the church's thrift shop and sings in its choir. She was UCCNSB's moderator (president of the congregation) from 2001-2003. In 2000 she was named UCC Florida's Woman of the Year and in 2010 she was selected National Woman of the Year for Florida.
Originally from Rochester, New Hampshire, Spencer was confirmed in her UCC church there when she was 13 years old in 1945 and immediately became a member of the church.
She recalls how she learned how valuable church history is: "When I was a young girl, I worked as a church secretary. I was sweeping out a closet and noticed this box tucked in the back next to some canned peaches. I was amazed to discover that it was filled with hand-bound, hand-written notebooks of the births, baptisms and marriages dating back to the 1600s in this little church."
She said she convinced the pastor to get those records to the bank for safe keeping. "Churches were burning down all the time back then because we were still lighting candles and leaving them in windows. I was afraid our church would burn down and all that historical information about the whole town would be lost."
Spencer, noted that the fear of a church burning down isn't as great today as it was 70 years ago, "but all that history is still buried in boxes and boxes all around our churches. It would be a shame for all that history to be tossed out some day by someone who didn't bother to open the box."
With the end of her current term on the church council coming in December, she is looking forward to taking a step back from leadership roles and immersing herself among the dusty boxes at UCCNSB to bring some order to its long, rich history.
— Cindy Casey, cindy.casey@news-jrnl.com, contributed to this report.