History

Famous Members of One of the Seven Societies

Anne Hutchinson (First Church member) Following her pastor John Cotton from Lincolnshire, Anne was excommunicated from the Church by the suspicion of her Antinomianism.  Her spirited defense against the charge-by the combined clergy of the Colony makes her an early disciple of independent thought, free speech, and women’s rights.

John Winthrop (1629-1649) (First Church) First and seven times Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A ‘lay preacher,’ his journals and papers provide a history of early colonial life and government.

Temperance Sweete (First Church) was admonished “for having received into house and given entertainment unto disorderly Company and ministering unto them wine and strong waters even unto Drunkennesse and that not without some iniquity both in the measure and pryce therof.” [Church Records 1640]

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) (First Church) “America’s first poet.” Her verses The Tenth Muse and were published in London in 1650.  The Church memorial reads: ‘Mirror of her Age, Glory of her Sex.’

Sister Hogg (First Church) “For her disorderly singing and her idleness. . .we admonished with the consent of the Church.” [Church records, 1657]

Titus Vespation (First Church) A free Negro admitted and baptized August 10, 1730. [Church records]

James Caldwell (Second Church) One of the five casualties in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770 which led to the Revolutionary War.

Paul Revere (1735-1818) (Second Church) Patriot and silversmith.  He was a member of the Standing Committee of the Seventh Church in Boston.

Robert Treat Paine (First Church) Delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1868) (First Church) Sixth President of the United States.

Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886) (First Church) Historian and author, Ambassador to England.