Page 41 - Wallingford Magazine Issue 53 Early Spring 2025

This concludes the first of two articles
on the history of the First Congrega-
tional Church of Wallingford, and I have
only gotten as far as 1681, six years after
the founding. As mentioned in the au-
thor’s note, no legitimate history of the
This photo is of the first meeting house of the first church in Wallingford, Connecticut
1st Congregational Church that was located could limit itself to the organization
where Simpson Court is now. The sketch was alone. It was absolutely essential that
in the FCC of Wallingford 300th Anniversary the story be told in the context of the
booklet. history being played out at the time.
kept. He used the hard end of a stock to The religious upheaval in England cre-
rap the head of any sleeping man and ated the Puritan colonies of Plymouth, A map of the original layout of Wallingford.
awakened the women by the tickle of Massachusetts Bay, New Haven, Con-
a bunch of feathers attached to a string necticut and others. It’s taken from the FCC of Wallingford 300th
on the other end of the rod. Anniversary booklet.
The Puritans arrived seeking religious
“Our ancestors were ‘fyned’ two shil- freedom that they were being denied at the decades that followed, as it should
lings, six pence, for non-attendance at home. Ironically, however, these same have. And it culminated in the First
meeting. Half-grown boys were sent Puritans then demanded that their be- Amendment of our Constitution, which
from home early in the morning to pro- liefs be the exclusive ones in the colo- reads in part: “Congress shall make no
vide to light the fires in the sixteen-foot nies they established. The Town of Wall- law respecting an establishment of re-
square ‘Sabba Day Houses,’ clustered ingford and its very first church were ligion or prohibiting the free exercise
about the meeting house. These were born in a society that insisted on that thereof,…” So while the First Congrega-
provided for members of the congrega- spiritual monopoly. tional Church of Wallingford once domi-
tion who had to travel a great distance nated religious thought in our town, our
to church. Here they could stable their As will be seen in the next article, such members now celebrate the diversity of
horses, get warm, and cook their mid- hyper-conformity of thought, while thought that freedom of religion fosters
day meal.” evident in 1675, slowly broke down in in our country.

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