Allin Congregational Church

Allin Congregational Church is an historic United Church of Christ church in Dedham, Massachusetts. It was built in 1818 by conservative breakaway members of Dedham's First Church and Parish in the Greek Revival style.

The preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield helped to revive the churches of Dedham during the Great Awakening. The theological debates that arose as a result, however, helped bring about a split in the churches into different denominations. Allin Congregational Church was founded in 1818 when more conservative members of the First Church and Parish broke off from the increasingly liberal First Church. In the early 19th century, all Massachusetts towns were Constitutionally required to tax their citizens "for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety." All residents of a town were assessed, as members of the parish, whether or not they were also members of the church. The "previous and long standing practice [was to have] the church vote for the minister and the parish sanction this vote." A bear escaped from the estate of eccentric sewing machine magnate William Emerson Baker in 1888 and spent the night under the Church's porch before returning to Needham the next day.

In 1818 "Dedham [claimed] rights distinct from the church and against the vote of the church." The town, as the parish, selected a liberal Unitarian minister, Rev. Alvan Lamson, to serve the First Church in Dedham. The members of the church were more traditional and rejected Lamson by a vote of 18–14. When the parish installed and ordained Lamson, the more conservative or orthodox members left in 1818 decided to form a new church nearby. During the split, the departing members included Deacon Samuel Fales, who took parish records, funds, and the valuable silver used for communion with him. Members of the First Church sued and the case, Baker v. Fales, reached the Supreme Judicial Court. The court ruled that "[w]hatever the usage in settling ministers, the Bill of Rights of 1780 secures to towns, not to churches, the right to elect the minister, in the last resort." The court held that the property had to be returned to First Church, setting a precedent for future congregational splits that would arise as Unitarianism grew. The case was a major milestone in the road towards the separation of church and state and led to the Commonwealth formally disestablishing the Congregational Church in 1833. The orthodox faction supposedly responded to the decision with the saying, "They kept the furniture, but we kept the faith." Despite the court ruling, the silver was not returned to First Church. It remained hidden away until 1969 when it was donated to the Dedham Historical Society as a neutral third party. Today it is on permanent loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, and replicas have been made for both churches. The new congregation was initially called the Orthodox Church, but was later renamed Allin Congregational Church after John Allin, the founder and first pastor of First Church. Shortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Baker v. Fales that the rival faction was, in fact, the First Church, the Orthodox Church ordained their first minister, Ebenezer Burgess. The letters calling for a council, however, went out in the name of "the First Church."

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).