1824 - First Congregational Church - Stockbridge, MA - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

The congregation for the church was organized in October 1734 during the Colonial Era in the Native American settlement of Stockbridge, MA. At that time Yale graduate John Sergeant served as the first minister to the Native Americans. The church grew as many Native American Mohicans were converted to Christianity.

After Sergeant died in 1749 he was succeeded by Jonathan Edwards, the most influential colonial-era minister. It was during his tenure here that he wrote his masterpiece, Freedom of the Will, which remains one of the greatest works in American theology. Edwards left the church to become the President of The College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.

The first church was built in 1739. It was replaced by a second church building that stood from 1785 to 1824. The present brick building was built in 1824 in the Colonial Revival-Federal Style designed by Ralph Bigelow and William A. Johnson. The church was restructured in 1865. The font of the church features a short two-story high porch that is three bays wide. The porch has a gabled roof and two Ionic piasters on the sides. Inside the porch are three entrances topped with fan windows and curved lintels. The central door is slightly larger than the flanking doors. Above each door is a rectangular multi-paned window. On each side of the porch are two levels of matching windows.

The four stage steeple consists of a square tower, a pair of stacked belfries with louvered windows, and a spire. The west side is two stories high and six bays wide. Each bay has a set of windows matching the windows on the front. The east side has four bays of shuttered windows. Beyond these four bays is a brick wing built in 1890 which houses the Jonathan Edwards Parlor.

Year of construction: 1824 Cross-listed waymark: [Web Link] Full inscription: 1824

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