BRUNSWICK

 As the First Parish Church in Brunswick celebrates its 300th anniversary, parishioners and community members are taking a moment to recognize what the church means to the community.

“The First Parish Church has been a spiritual meeting place for 300 years, and plans to be so into the future,” said First Parish Senior Pastor Mary Baard.

Baard said that Sunday services is just a part of the church’s mission “to do right.”

For example, the church also holds a bimonthly event called Spirit Matters, where parishioners discuss their humanitarian work at home and abroad. Recent discussions include politics, the opioid crisis, the arts and helping families in Afghanistan. Baard said a number of groups — from book clubs to Tai Chi classes to choirs — utilize church facilities. Groups such as AA, the Boy Scouts and Family Focus meet at First Parish.

“I think people have found some churches not to be open, but I believe church has to be a place that is open to everyone. At the church we talk about this as good stewardship,” said Baard. “The facilities are being put to good use not only for a congregation but for a wider community. That’s why the church is here, and we are grateful for how it’s used.”

‘Awash in history’

“It’s hard to imagine the town of Brunswick without the First Parish Church,” said Larissa Vigue Picard, executive director of Pejepscot Historical Society. “In addition to the glorious building that today serves for many as the iconic structure in Brunswick, the church is awash in history.”

The history of the First Parish Church is intrinsically linked with the town of Brunswick and with Bowdoin College.

The church started when Rev. Joseph Baxter of the Massachusetts Colony visited Brunswick 1717 as a missionary and hosted a sermon on the banks of Androscoggin River, behind where Fort Andross sits today. In those days, Brunswick was a settlement populated primarily by soldiers, tradesmen and Native Americans.

The church’s first meetinghouse was constructed near the intersection of Pleasant Hill Road and Maine Street in 1719. Church Historian Mildred Jones said that the connection between church and town was evident from that day forth.

“Everybody in town were members of the church and the parish in the beginning,” said Jones. “The parish was the business end, the real estate end, and the church was the spiritual end. Everybody supported it.”

That changed when a Baptist church moved into town in the 1790s. A colony rule stated that the town couldn’t fund more than one church, so the First Parish Church split away from the town and began funding itself.

A relationship with Bowdoin College that began in the early 19th century helped bring the church back to prominence.

“Our second church building was finished in 1806 on Maine Street, on the site of the current building,” said Jones. “Bowdoin’s first class graduated in the building while it was still in construction. There was no roof and it was pouring rain, but they wanted a church to graduate in.”

Bowdoin College Historian John Cross — who recently spoke at a First Parish event at Bowdoin celebrating the connection of the church and the college — said that Bowdoin officials had asked that the church be built near the college, and gave the parish $800 for funding. The college then used the church for commencements and school church services until 1964, when those activities were switched to the Morrell Gym and Bowdoin Chapel, respectively. Baccalaureate and opening convocation ceremonies were held at the church until 2001. Bowdoin owns a share of the First Parish land to this day.

“There have been a lot of associations with the town and the college,” said Cross. “It is an amazing building that has seen an awful lot. If you stand at the church and look down Maine Street at the tower of the old mill, it’s like these are the bookends of downtown.”

A historic building

The current church building was designed by Richard Upjohn — the architect behind New York City’s Trinity Church — and erected in 1846. The building featured an 80-foot-high bell tower and what was then a state-of-the-art pipe organ.

Though there have been multiple additions since then, much of the structure remains the same as it was in the mid-19th century — a 500-seat room with high ceilings, stained-glass windows and balconies on three sides facing the pulpit.

“The organ has been refurbished many times, especially in the past 50 years, but is still in place to this day,” said Jones.

Many famous people have passed through the church over the years, including parishioners Harriet Beecher Stowe and Joshua Chamberlain — who both have dedication plaques at their respective pews — and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The church was visited by Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke at the church in 1964 during the height of the Civil Rights movement.

“The church was at standing room only when Dr. King came,” said Elizabeth Newman, longtime Brunswick resident and parishioner. “It was electric inside.”

“I was a 10-year-old kid when King spoke,” said Cross. “Before Morrell Gym, the First Parish was the largest place in town that you could have an audience.”

More recently, the church has hosted Bowdoin’s Summer Music Festival, which welcomed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2013.

The First Parish Church today has a robust membership.

“The membership of the church is over 700 people today, with 250-300 in attendance each week,” said Newman. “They’ve been coming for a long time, and they’ll be coming for a long time. We want to celebrate our history while keeping people from thinking First Parish Church is a museum.”

Trevor Peterson, a Bowdoin graduate who became a parishioner at First Parish a year ago, said that while the congregation’s long history intrigued him, he was more interested in what the church was doing in the present day.

“It takes awhile to recognize how much is going on through the congregation, all of the members who are involved in the community,” said Peterson. “The church does so much for Brunswick.”

Todd Rider, who has been a parishioner at the church for 16 years, said that boards around Brunswick are “riddled with First Parish members, whether it’s Brunswick Topsham Land Trust or Maine State Music Theatre. I think that says a lot about our church’s effect on the town.”

“We’re glad that we’re celebrating the 300th anniversary,” said Baard, “but we’re really excited to look forward, too.”

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com

Full circle

• THE CHURCH’S HISTORY will come full circle on Aug. 27, when First Parish will hold a service behind Fort Andross, near where Rev. Baxter held the inaugural worship in 1717.