USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The First Congregational church (Unitarian) of Cincinnati; a historical sketch with some account of the Church of the Redeemer, and Unity church > Part 5
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worship was transferred to College Hall, Walnut Street, the site of the present Mercantile Library building, and for the following years until the Spring of 1898, other settled pastors were Elijah A. Coll, December 9, 1891, and George R. Gebauer, December 8, 1895. Kindly relations were uniformly main- tained between the two congregations, the minister of the First Church being a frequent occupant of the Unity pulpit. But the drift of population which had compelled the transfer to the hilltops in 1889 continued to affect the new venture, and within a few years three of its original organizers and Trustees, Messrs. Paddack, Longley and Knight had removed to California and the accessions of other efficient men and women failed to make good the places of those who had gone. Mr. Gebauer closed his pastorate to accept a call to Alton, Illinois, March 3, 1898; and the Unity Congregation invited Mr. Thayer to conduct Sunday evening services in their hall. This was done for a few weeks, when it was deemed expedient to abandon the enterprise and the members became for the most part merged into the First Church.
With the establishment of the First Church upon the Read- ing Road, there came a hopeful influx of new attendants increasing the income by a thousand dollars. The completion of payment for the new structure had been delayed awaiting the sale of the Plum Street building which at length was consummated at a price of $32,000. But accumulated interest upon the loans and other items had produced an indebtedness of $6,800 which was met at a meeting of February 22, 1890, by subscriptions in sums from $3,000 to $5. The church being paid for, subscriptions were solicited for a new organ. The old instrument in the downtown church was sold for $700, and a new one contracted for with George S. Hutchings, of Boston, which, with the carved oak case given by Mrs. Frederick Eckstein, and her son, Frederick Eckstein, Jr., cost $3,229. This organ was first used on Sunday, December 7, 1890.
The gift of the organ case was accompanied during the first years of the new building by many other handsome remem- brances. October 6, 1889, an oak pulpit, carved by one of the distinguished artists of the city, Henry Fry, was presented by Mrs. M. E. Ingalls. April 6, 1890, a pulpit bench modelled upon antique ecclesiastical lines by Frederick F. Eckstein,
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Jr., was donated by Mrs. George N. Stone. Mrs. John W. Miller contributed a pulpit hymn book; Miss Elsie Field an embroidered cushion for the minister's bench; Harold Ryland a carved contribution plate, which later was supplemented by two others given by Mrs. E. Cortlandt Williams, who also presented the massive table in front of the pulpit, all in memory of her husband. The elaborate carved oak railing, with its many symbolic figures, which was erected in April, 1893, was the sequence of the tragic death of its designer, Frederick F. Eckstein, Jr., who had sketched it as a future possibility for the church, and which, upon his death, his mother caused to be completed as a memorial to him. In June, 1893, Miss Mary Rawson presented a suitable bookcase, of oak, for the loan library which had been collected originally by Sallie Ellis and bequeathed by her to the church. In May, 1894, Miss C. Belle Fithian gave the unique tract table in memory of her mother, Mary E. Fithian. October 30, 1901, a handsome and convenient addition to the building, since known as the Thornton Room, was dedicated with services befitting the memory of the long-time active member of the congregation, Mrs. George Thornton, of Clifton, who desired thus to express her affection for the Woman's Alliance, and who had made this among other benevolent bequests.
Sunday, May 27, 1900, the Seventieth Anniversary of the dedication of the First Church edifice on Race and Fourth Streets, was made the occasion of the recognition of a gift of a rose window behind the pulpit by the descendants of the men and women who had been prominent in the creation of the society. The suggestion of such a memorial and the largest part of the correspondence connected with the solicita- tion of funds for its completion were due to Miss Ellen P. Sampson, then of Washington, but for most of her life a worship- per with this congregation. The following announcement of the service was issued by the Trustees: "You are invited to take part in the services of dedication of a Memorial Window, given by the descendants of the founders of the First Congre- gational Unitarian Church of Cincinnati. The services will be held in the church on the Reading Road and Linton Street, Sunday, May 27, 1900, at eleven o'clock a. m., the nearest convenient day to the Seventieth Anniversary of the first
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public use of the house of worship, on the corner of Fourth and Race Streets. In behalf of the Congregation, M. E. Ingalls, Edward Goepper, Joseph W. Wayne, Joseph Wilby, Gerrit S. Sykes, Henry C. Peters; Trustees."
After a historical sermon by Mr. Thayer, Harold Ryland presented the window to the congregation and Joseph Wilby, in behalf of the church, made acknowledgment of the gift, and Davis Lawler James, Jr., a little boy named from Davis Lawler, drew aside the veil. The window is thus described in the circular of invitation:
"The window has as its central object the emblematical figure of Truth, with a noble and serious face, dressed in the conventional flowing robes of art; in the right hand a sword reversed, in the left a flaming torch, upon the left arm a wreath, and about the neck a massive key, surrounding the figure as a border is a series of antique lamps, each in a scroll containing the name of some typical religious virtue: as Truth, Righteous- ness, Love, Courage, Patience, Justice, Freedom. The back- ground is a rich landscape. The designer is Frederick Wilson, of the house of Tiffany and Company, New York. Beneath the window is a bronze tablet with this inscription: In grate- ful memory of Timothy Flint, William Greene, Abigail Lyman Greene, Timothy Walker, Elisha Brigham, George Carlisle, Robert B. Bowler, Nathan Guilford, Edmund Dexter, Charles Stetson, Rebecca R. Stetson, William Goodman, Charles Fisher, James Handasyd Perkins, Sarah Elliott Perkins, William S. Sampson, Samuel Davis, Jr., Rowland Ellis, John R. Child, Hannah R. Child, James Ryland, Anne Ryland, Davis B. Lawler, Rukard Hurd, Charles D. Dana, Sarah Lyman Dana, Francis Donaldson, John G. Anthony, Annie R. Anthony, William D. Gallagher, Edward Page Cranch, Richard B. Field, Elizabeth Dana Field, Joseph Rawson, Jacob Hoffner, John K. Coolidge, George H. Hill, John W. Hartwell, Founders of the First Congregational Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, who by their character and devotion made possible its permanence unto this day. Upon the Seventieth Anniversary of the dedication of the first house of worship this window and tablet are placed here by their descendants, May XXIII-MDCCCC." The bronze tablet was not ready to be put in place until the following July 25.
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Owing to a reconstruction of the organ, which involved the concealment of the first location of the tablet, the latter was removed in the winter of 1917 to the western wall of the church. The principle of selection of the names to be recorded was to fix a definite date, not too remote from the beginning, so that some names of active members, which did not appear in the church records until a short time after 1840, were excluded. It also appeared that some of the persons thus commemorated were of short connection with the church, following their families, or for other reasons, joining other congregations of the city.
Other valuable gifts to the church may properly be here included. Mrs. Elizabeth Zinn, who died in March, 1908, bequeathed the "First Congregational Church of Cincin- nati, known as the Unitarian Church, one thousand dollars to be used in providing some work or memorial to beautify said church, as a memorial to my son, Charles Davis, deceased."
Mrs. Louisa H. Lunkenheimer, widow of Frederick Lunken- heimer, who died in April, 1913, requested her executors to place in the hands of Mr. Thayer, one thousand dollars for the church.
Mrs. Mehitable C. C. Wilson, of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, but for many years a resident of this city, bequeathed, in 1911, five hundred dollars to the "Unitarian Church of Avon- dale." The administrators of this will, The Old Colony Trust Company, of Boston, sent this sum, with certain tax deductions, to the officers of the church. These three bequests, amounting, before they were used to nearly three thousand dollars, were appropriated by a vote of the Church Trustees, to reconstruction and enlargement of the organ in the Winter of 1916-17. May 29, 1910, a solid table of quartered oak, made by the Art Joinery Company, of Cincinnati, from whose skill had come the larger part of the artistic furniture of the church, was presented to the Woman's Alliance by Martin, William and Wright Sampson, in memory of their parents William S. Jr., and Virginia W. Sampson, Mrs. Sampson having been one of the Alliance Presidents. June 2, 1907, the portraits of former ministers of the church, some of them in oil and others in photograph, were added to in the form of a crayon portrait of Ephraim Peabody, given by
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his children, Mrs. Henry W. Bellows, and Francis G. and Robert S. Peabody, of Boston.
For a few years the former functions of the Unity Club weekly gatherings were transferred to The Fortnightly, an association like the other, including young and old in its membership. Gerrit S. Sykes and Frank D. Jamison were its Presidents, and its most successful seasons were enjoyed in a series of essays and readings upon Lessing's drama of Nathan the Wise, Holland, and Colonial New England. But the social pressure of a growing city, with its numerous dis- tractions and amusements, many of them of an intellectual nature, tended steadily to reduce the importance of the church as the chief channel of literary expression of the younger members of the congregation, and The Fortnightly followed the fate of the other Club, and has since had as its successors only smaller associations whose appeal has seldom gone beyond the congregation. But the Woman's Alliance, a branch of a national Unitarian organization of the women of the denomination, has been active in promoting literary and religious studies, in which they have been assisted by men and women outside of the church; and has also maintained occasional lectures by people of distinction. One such special venture of the Alliance excited a wide interest in the community, this being a series of addresses, January 12 to 15, 1893, upon the customs and religions of India, by B. Nargarkar, of Bom- bay, a representative of the Hindu ethical church, the Brahmo Somaj. The Columbian Exposition, held at Chicago during the Summer and Fall of 1892, as one of its most impressive features held a Congress of Religions in whose deliberations were participants from a large number of Oriental faiths, conspicuous among them being the various shades of Hinduism, one of which was ably represented by Nargarkar. His lectures had the permanent effect of contributing to a widening of the sympathies of our community in that movement, which was fostered by the Columbian Exposition, of recognizing the contri- bution of all forms of historical religion, besides Judaism and Christianity, to the development of the world's progress. Three or four hundred persons attended these discussions and its proceeds, above expenses, gave over $200 to the Kinder- garten Association. Other notables who have spoken upon our
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platform are Frank B. Sanborn, of Concord, upon "Emerson as I knew him," on April 21, 1903; Nicholas Tschaikowsky and Alexis Aleydin, Russian patriots, the latter a member of the Duma, the Russian attempt at a national parliament, who, on Sunday evening, May 19, 1907, told with powerful pathos the story of the struggles of a few leaders for the release of their country from its centuries of intolerable absolutism; Rev. Reginald J. Campbell of the City Temple of London, on Sunday, December 3, 1911; and Dr. Stanton Coit, of the West London Ethical Society, on January 31, 1915.
On Wednesday evening, January 19, 1898, during one of the most furious rains of the Winter, which made it impracticable for infirm people to face the weather, a reception was given to Mr. and Mrs. Thayer in recognition of their fifteen years of connection with the church. To this gathering came many representatives of the neighboring churches, including clergy- men, while letters of cordial good will were received from eight ministers, respectively, of Congregational, Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and from a large number of Unitarian leaders in the East and West. In addition to a lavish display of flowers and flags, throughout the edifice whose pews had been removed, a handsome gift of silver was made to the special guests of the evening. Nine years later, in 1907, the generosity of the congregation and some friends of the larger community was manifested in making provision, through a large sum of money for a Summer in Europe of the Pastor and his wife.
For special reasons the occurrence of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the incorporation of the church was not observed in 1905, but on Sunday, January 21, 1906, a large audience made up in considerable part of the descendants of the former members took part in a service of historical commemoration, with a sermon by the pastor in review of religious changes during the three quarters of a century, and letters of rejoicing from Samuel A. Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Association, whose grandfather was the second minister of the church; Wilson M. Backus, Secretary of the Western Conference, Moncure D. Conway, and Charles W. Wendte. Among the floral festoons were interwoven the names of the ten predecessors of the present minister.
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The financial support of the church had always had as its chief dependence the rental of pews, aided by Sunday col- lections. But this source had uniformly, from the beginning of the church, failed to fully meet the expenditures, and the deficiency was made up by occasional solicitations through special committees. The habit of a church debt became chronic, with much resultant irritation at all of the annual meetings; but it was only in 1910 that an intelligent move- ment was planned to prevent such yearly arrears. A com- mittee of five, composed of the Chairman of the Trustees, Edward Goepper, and Casper H. Rowe, Davis L. James, Thomas B. Punshon and Fanny B. Webster, undertook to raise a fund apart from the pew rentals to be pledged for three years, which should cover all the annual outlays of the church, including its contributions to the two denominational missionary societies, the Western Unitarian Conference and American Unitarian Association. This committee performed its task with satisfaction and the custom of securing such triennial pledges has, from its origin, met all the customary appropriations of the church. Extraordinary purposes have been dealt with as before, by especial calls for contributions. Among such unusual occasions was the meeting of the Western Conference of Unitarian Churches, in May, 1915, the Sixty- third session during its history, which began in Cincinnati. To make this return of the Conference to its birthplace thor- oughly pleasant, arrangements were made with one of the hotels for the entertainment of a majority of the visitors, and the last evening of the meetings was given to a banquet at the Sinton Hotel, on Fourth Street, near Vine, at which a hundred and eighty persons feasted and took part in expres- sions of loyalty to the faith of reason. The chairman of the evening was Levi C. Goodale, to whose energy much of the success of the hospitality of the week was due; while one of the members of the Alliance, Mrs. Alice Williams Brotherton, spoke with exceeding gracefulness and contributed an original poem.
In January, 1911, by the resignation of two of the Trustees, a vital question of the proper basis of participation in the government of the church became urgent of rational settle- ment. From the first the old usage of Congregationalism had
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restricted the business control of the church to the owners of pews who were assumed by their investment of money to have a more permanent and conservative interest in the maintenance of the society than those who were voluntary subscribers; since the pews were liable to a regular assessment. This control was generally assured by the provision that a majority of the Trustees should be pew owners, the other members of the congregation having the right to select the minority. In the reunion of the Church of the Redeemer and the First Congregational Church, in 1876, while it was agreed that the voting privilege at business meetings should be granted to all persons habitually in attendance upon the church services, who were eighteen years of age or older, after the approval of their membership by the Trustees, it was determined that no disposition of the church property nor settlement of a minister should be legal without the concurrent vote of a majority of all the pew owners. So long as it con- tinued to be customary to own pews by a majority of the worshippers, this provision produced no apparent ill effects. But in the process of years fewer pews were bought, and eventu- ally it happened that in order to meet the requirements of the articles of union so as to have available for the office of Trustee a majority of pew owners, some legal fiction had to be employed to create suitable candidates. Through the recent declination to longer serve upon the Board of Trustees of two of the five eligible persons and the removal from the city of another, the church bade fair to have no legal board of trustees. Accord- ingly it was resolved that the Constitution should be amended so as to vest the control of all the church interests in the church members represented by its Trustees; and on the even- ing of May 15, 1911, after due advertisement in the daily newspapers, a large number of titles to pews which had lapsed from neglect of the putative owners to pay the proper assess- ments, were sold at auction and bought by the church treasurer; so that with a very few exceptions the congregation now obtained full control of its estate. Then the number of Trustees was increased from six to seven.
A noteworthy result of the change in the constitution of the church government has been in the establishment of periodic meetings of the Trustees, in order to keep in touch
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with the affairs of the congregation, a custom which, if it had ever previously existed, had long fallen into neglect. From the first years of Mr. Thayer's ministry, an endeavor was made to awaken the responsibility of the congregation in its administrative business, by bringing about a respectable attendance at the regular meetings for discussion of finances and the election of officers. This was to a considerable extent accomplished by the establishment of a "parish supper" on the evening of the annual business meeting, which, with its social aspect, has continued to produce a much larger gathering of both sexes than had been wont to appear at such meetings; of many of which it was credibly reported that a quorum was obtained with much effort; the day of the telephone not having come. The parish meetings are now occupied with enter- taining accounts from the various departments of church activity, such as the Sunday School, the Woman's Alliance, the Cheerful Letter Committee, the Post Office Mission and a statement by the minister of the progress of the church during the year.
The Woman's Alliance has become one of the most impor- tant of the agencies for promoting the welfare of the church. At its monthly meetings it has had a wide range of papers and studies of religion, ethics and benevolence; it also has weekly gatherings for work for the poor; and partly under its auspices many sermons of the minister have been put into tract form and widely distributed. Where the funds of the Alliance were not available for such printing private contributions from the congregation have been freely offered and upon one occasion, at the outbreak of the great tragic European war, a Fourth of July discourse by Mr. Thayer was sent abroad at the charge of one gentleman to the number of five thousand copies. Through these printed utterances of the pulpit a tract table, the memorial gift of Miss Fithian, has been constantly supplied with material somewhat better adapted to local conditions of religious inquiry than the standard literature of the denomi- nation which, however, through the publications of the Ameri- can Unitarian Association, has been freely used. The annual sale and supper, conducted by the Alliance and other women of the congregation, has afforded a twofold opportunity of attracting to the church many of its friends in other churches,
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who come to buy and to renew old acquaintance, and of adding to the church revenues. Many of the costly decorations of the walls of the church, and other extraordinary necessities have come within the activity of the Alliance.
In November, 1913, the Board of Trustees, in view of the long service of the pastor, resolved to recommend to the congregation that an Assistant pastor be chosen, with duties chiefly related to congregational visiting and the manage- ment of the Sunday School and other organizations of the younger persons of the community. This recommendation was approved by a congregational meeting on the evening of January 5, 1914, and a committee consisting of James B. Stanwood, Thomas B. Punshon, Robert Hochstetter, Mrs. Joseph A. Hall and Miss Jessie Gardner, with Mr. Thayer ex officio, was appointed to carry out this plan. Its result was the selection of Rev. John H. Wilson, of Wilton, New Hampshire, but the specific relation of Mr. Wilson's office to that of the regular pastor was unfortunately left to be worked out by experience, since the intentions of the congre- gation were not yet clearly developed; so that Mr. Wilson assumed, what was not the understanding of the special committee, that he was to become the full minister of the church. As a result of this difference of interpretation, he preferred to seek a pastorate elsewhere and after nine months' service, from September 20, 1914, to May 30, 1915, he resigned, later to be settled over the church at Framingham, Massa- chusetts.
In order to accomplish the evident desires of the congre- gation to relieve Mr. Thayer of the larger part of the activities of the pastorate, it was definitely resolved at a meeting of November 19, 1916, that the office of Pastor Emeritus should be established, with such compensation as should be mutually agreed upon by the Trustees and Mr. Thayer, and that the full charge of the ministerial conduct of the church should be assumed by Rev. Alson Haven Robinson, of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, with whom correspondence had been conducted both by the Trustees and Mr. Thayer. With many kindly expressions of good will and affection from the officers and many members of the congregation, Mr. Thayer definitely closed his pastorate on Sunday, January 9, 1916, and on the
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following Sunday, Mr. Robinson assumed the ministerial succession, with a simple recognition of his relations to the congregation, by the President of the Trustees, Lee A. Ault, and a response by the pastor elect. Mr. Thayer's closing sermon, entitled "Work and Wages," was published by one of the parishioners, Miss Webster, and thus what, from its unprecedentedly long continuance, had become an old order of the church administration whereof many of the younger members had never known any other, was merged into a new order.
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MINISTERS OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Edward B. Hall, from September, 1830, to June 13, 1831. Ephraim Peabody, from May 20, 1832, to February, 1836. Benjamin Huntoon, from August, 1837, to May, 1838. William Henry Channing, from May 10, 1839, to May, 1841. Cornelius George Fenner, from June, to November, 1846.
James Handasyd Perkins, from August 15, 1847, to December 14, 1849. (Mr. Perkins acted as occasional supply from 1841.)
Abiel Abbot Livermore, from May 26, 1850, to July 6, 1856.
Moncure Daniel Conway, from December 21, 1856, to November, 1862. (Charles Gordon Ames occupied the pulpit for some months in 1863.) Thomas Vickers, from January 6, 1867, to April 5, 1874.
Charles William Wendte, from January 19, 1876, to April 16, 1882.
George Augustine Thayer, from October 5, 1882, to January 9, 1916. (Pastor Emeritus from January, 1916.)
Alson Haven Robinson, January 16, 1916.
MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER
Amory D. Mayo, from January, 1863, to --- , 1872.
Charles Noyes, from January 5, 1873, to June, 1875.
MINISTERS OF UNITY CHURCH
Judson Fisher, October, 1888.
Leon A. Harvey, February 5, 1890.
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