John Alden was a crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the Mayflower which brought the English settlers commonly known as Pilgrims to Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, US. He was hired in Southampton, England, as the ship's cooper, responsible for maintaining the ship's barrels. Although he was a member of the ship's crew and not a settler, Alden decided to remain in Plymouth Colony when the Mayflower returned to England. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact.
Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The name Cape Cod, coined in 1602 by Bartholomew Gosnold, is the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S.
Plymouth Colony was, from 1620 to 1691, the first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the passengers on the Mayflower, at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock.
Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, and is the oldest town on Cape Cod. The town motto is Post tot Naufracia Portus, "after so many shipwrecks, a haven". The population was 20,259 at the 2020 census.
Plymouth is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as "America's Hometown". Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Mayflower Pilgrims, where New England was first established. It is the oldest municipality in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. The town has served as the location of several prominent events, one of the more notable being the First Thanksgiving feast. Plymouth served as the capital of Plymouth Colony from its founding in 1620 until the colony's merger with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691. The English explorer John Smith named the area Plymouth and the region 'New England' during his voyage of 1614. It was a later coincidence that, after an aborted attempt to make the 1620 trans-Atlantic crossing from Southampton, the Mayflower finally set sail for America from Plymouth, England.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4,800 churches and 773,500 members. The United Church of Christ is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Pilgrims and Puritans. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC. These two denominations, which were themselves the result of earlier unions, had their roots in Congregational, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Reformed denominations. At the end of 2014, the UCC's 5,116 congregations claimed 979,239 members, primarily in the U.S. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 0.4 percent, or 1 million adult adherents, of the U.S. population self-identify with the United Church of Christ.
West Barnstable is a seaside village in the northwest part of the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Once devoted to agricultural pursuits, West Barnstable now is largely residential and historic. Originally founded in 1639 as part of its neighboring village Barnstable, MA, West Barnstable separated in 1717 with the split into two parishes of the local congregational church.
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in December 1620. The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates to 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock." The first documented claim that Plymouth Rock was the landing place of the Pilgrims was made by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce in 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.
The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of about 400 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition. The Association maintains its national office in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The body was founded in 1955 by former clergy and laypeople of the Congregational Christian Churches in response to that denomination's pending merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ in 1957.
Biblical Witness Fellowship is an evangelical renewal movement composed of members of the United Church of Christ. Founded in 1978 as the United Church People for Biblical Witness, the movement reorganized as the Biblical Witness Fellowship at a national convocation in Byfield, Massachusetts in 1984, hosted by the current president of BWF, the Rev. Dr. William Boylan.
Edmund Freeman was one of the founders of Sandwich, Massachusetts and an Assistant Governor of Plymouth Colony from 1640 to 1647, serving under Governor William Bradford and Governor Edward Winslow.
The Second Church in Newton, United Church of Christ, is located at 60 Highland Street in West Newton, a village of Newton, Massachusetts. This church is rooted in the Congregational denomination, welcome all visitors, and does not require uniformity of belief. Its present church building, a Gothic Victorian structure designed by architects Allen & Collens and completed in 1916, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Evangelical Association of Reformed and Congregational Christian Churches is a fellowship of conservative evangelical Protestant Christian congregations in the United States that became disaffected from the United Church of Christ due to that denomination's national entities professing support for practices such as abortion and homosexuality. Unlike other more sectarian churches, the Evangelical Association does not forbid its member congregations to simultaneously belong to other denominations and fellowships, as the local churches continue to practice congregational polity.
North Avenue Congregational Church is a historic church meetinghouse at 1801 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was completely renovated in 2015 to become a library for Lesley University. The former church now forms part of what is now the Lunder Arts Center complex.
Still River Baptist Church is the home of the Harvard Historical Society. It is an historic Gothic Revival-style meeting house located at 213 Still River Road in Harvard, Massachusetts. The building houses the Harvard Historical Society's museum and archival collections.
Wesley Church is a Uniting Church in Perth, Western Australia, located at the corner of William Street and Hay Street. It is one of the oldest church buildings and one of few remaining 19th-century colonial buildings in the City of Perth.
First Parish Church in Plymouth is a historic Unitarian Universalist church at the base of Burial Hill on the town square off Leyden Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The congregation was founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims in Plymouth. The current building was constructed in 1899.
Moses Fletcher was a Leiden Separatist who came to America on the historic 1620 voyage of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact and perished shortly thereafter in the Pilgrims first winter in the New World.
Plymouth Congregational Church is a historic congregation located in downtown Seattle and associated with the United Church of Christ denomination. Plymouth is known for its history of social justice advocacy, music and its creation of programs to serve the homeless, such as Plymouth Healing Communities and Plymouth Housing. The Rev. Dr. Kelle Brown is the Senior Pastor. She leads collaboratively with associate pastors Rev. Jennifer Castle and Rev. Kevin Bechtold.
The Congregational Church in Exeter was gathered in 1638 by the Rev. John Wheelwright following his expulsion from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The current congregation is a merger of the former First Parish and Second Parish of Exeter. Second Parish split from First Parish in the 1700s during the Great Awakening over theological differences. The two congregations then reunited in 1920.
