3/0 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET. 



Circle in the year 1819 for the study of the Scriptures. 

 This became a Sabbath-school in 1822, held in a private 

 home, adjoining the present Engine House, Number One. 



Students from Andover Theological Seminary, an insti- 

 tution organized to oppose the Unitarian movement, 

 came here frequently to preach. Some of the towns- 

 people attended these services, and the disaffection grew 

 until the old parish became divided by an irreconcilable 

 breach. 



There were personal resentments as well as religious 

 differences which enlarged the number of disaffected par- 

 ishioners, until there were twenty who signed "articles of 

 agreement to build another meeting-house for the worship 

 of Almighty God." 



They were : — 



John C. Proctor. Thomas Stoddard. 



Jairus Pratt. Bethiah Lothrop. 



Nichols Tower. Anna Stoddard. 



Paul Bates. Abner Briggs. 



Thaddeus Lawrence. Elizabeth Briggs. 



Daniel Bates. Maria Bates. 



Henry Homes. David Beal. 



Zenas Stoddard. Mary Lincoln. 



Leavit Burbank. Priscilla Lincoln. 



Thomas Farrar. Jacob Whitcomb. 



Their house of worship was undertaken that fall and 

 was dedicated January 27, 1825, upon the land where it 

 now stands, given by Captain Nichols Tower. 



Meanwhile a church had been organized with twenty 

 members by the help of several other churches, includ- 

 ing the Old South of Boston and the First Church of 

 Braintree. 



The animosities which grew out of that division in the 

 old parish were hard to suppress. Families were divided 

 so that husband and wife going together to public worship 

 upon a Sabbath morning would separate at the Common, 



