First Church, Site of

One of the first buildings erected by the Puritans after the founding of Boston in 1630 was their meeting house. The meeting house was built of wood with a thatched roof on a site now located on State Street. A second meeting house was built close by, in Cornhill Square near the town house, in 1640. After a fire burned that building to the ground in 1711, a brick building was constructed on the same site. A fourth meeting house was built in 1807, at Chauncey Place, near the corner of Washington and Summer Streets. Finally, the fifth meeting house was located on Marlborough Street, at Berkeley, in 1868. In 1968, a fire destroyed that 100-year-old building and a new one was built in 1972. The First Church remains in this location today, and is Unitarian Universalist.

Among the ministers preaching at the First Church during the witch trials was Joshua Moody. Rev. Moody assisted a few of the accused to escape from Boston, among them Philip and Mary English, John Alden, and the Carys of Charlestown.

A plaque memorializing the location of the 1630s church is above the door at 27 State Street. (The present-day church is at 66 Marlborough Street.)