Get Connected

by William McCarthy, Processing and Reference Archivist

While the staff of the CLA have been working from home, we have continued to remain engaged with our collections even while separated from them. These posts will highlight some of our less well-known collections. Please note that the collections highlighted are not available online unless otherwise noted.

Today we are going to look at collection RG0069, Dorchester, Mass. Second Church records. This collection originally formed out of a donation in 1963 but was not properly added to the collection until 1989. In 2019, the CLA received a large deposit of material and the collection was re-processed in June 2019. Our collection spans the entire life of the church, including records from before it was established.

The beginnings of Second Church in Dorchester started when it was organized on January 1, 1808 by 64 members of First Church of Dorchester. These 64 members included 27 men and 37 women who had decided to split from the "Mother Church". On January 19, 1810, the group voted to name the new church South Church in Dorchester. This name only lasted two years when on April 3, 1812 they renamed the church "Second Church". The expansion into a new church was mainly meant to tackle the expanding population of the area. The first official pastor for the newly formed Second Church was Dr. John Codman. Rev. Codman was a member of an influential family and graduated from Harvard. His pastorate would be the longest for the church and during this time the church was visited by Daniel Webster and (on occasion) John Adams. The records in our collection continue up until 1991, shortly after the transfer of the church to the Church of the Nazarene. (1)

This collection is over 30 full boxes and contains a wealth of information on the day-to-day happenings of the Second Church. One thing to note is that the collection holds records from 40 auxiliary organizations. Some highlights from this section include the Chinese Sunday School's Copy of The Book of Acts in Mandarin (1909), the Couples Club records (1943-1953) and the Dorchester Gentlemen's Driving Club (1913-1915). Another area I want to draw attention too is the church building information. Included here is information on the selling of land in 1854, the purchasing of an organ in 1857 and various plans on additional projects across the 20th century. Overall, the collection gives a complete picture of church operations and desires extra attention and research.

The finding aid for this collection can be found here. If you have any interest in viewing this collection once the library reopens, or you have any other CLA related questions, do not hesitate to reach out to us at ref@14beacon.org. Stay safe and have a great day!

Bib: "History." Second Church in Dorchester. March 23, 2019. Accessed July 8, 2020. http:// secondchurchdorchester.org/about-us-2/history/.