Digital archives offer important New England historical records including Windham

The public can now access historical records from New
England history including a digital collection from the 
First Congregational Church in Windham, now called the
Windham Hill United Church of Christ and still operating
today. Records are available from over 100 churches in New
England in 90 communities for anyone interested in learning
more about the history of their state, community or family.
COURTESY PHOTO  

BOSTON – The Congregational Library & Archives, a specialty library in Boston, has announced the launch of its digital archive which contains more than 100,000 images across more than 4,000 extraordinary historical records that illuminate New England history.

Records from over 100 New England churches in 90 communities, with most records dating between 1634 and 1850, are freely available for those interested in learning more about the history of their state, community or family.  

The digital archive includes records from the First Congregational Church in Windham, now the Windham Hill United Church of Christ. The "Windham, Maine First Congregational Church records, 1743-1799" collection contains two volumes of church records, spanning the ministries of John Wight and Peter Thatcher Smith, which include detailed membership records. These materials have been digitized in partnership with the Maine Historical Society.

CLA's digital archive launch coincides with its first digital exhibit. Titled 'We do Give up ourselves to one another:'  Exploring digitized Congregational disciplinary records at the Congregational Library & Archives, the exhibit includes documents and stories found within the digital archive both to present compelling historical narratives about church disciplinary cases and to teach visitors about the unique genre of Congregational disciplinary records.

Just as we do today, Congregationalists in the colonial era and the early years of our nation struggled with the questions “what is our responsibility to one another?” and “how do we make amends to a community we’ve harmed?” This exhibit provides a window into how Congregationalists grappled with these questions and illustrates the important roles of forgiveness and repentance in bridging community divisions.

Congregational church records in CLA’s collection offer a rich and remarkable view of life in colonial and early American New England.

Well before the writing of the Constitution, each member in the early Puritan churches had an equal vote, with the power to govern themselves and to choose their own ministers. The records of these congregations document births, deaths and marriages, but also open a window onto the lives of ordinary people deliberating on matters both sacred and secular.

For much of the colonial period, church business was town business, and so beyond the usual information on births, deaths and marriages, church records show ordinary people making decisions about property, taxation and their representation in the larger affairs of the colony or state.

The digital archive currently includes over 170 collections that contain manuscript sermons, vital church records, church disciplinary records, minister diaries, the documented religious experiences of everyday Congregationalists across time and more. CLA will add collections to its digital archive in the months and years ahead.  

Many of the documents in the digital archive are being made available to the public for the first time as part of CLA’s New England’s Hidden Histories initiative.

In an effort to further increase accessibility for genealogists, historical researchers, students and all others, thousands of pages of transcription have been produced. Since 2005, the Congregational Library, in partnership with the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale and many local churches across New England, has been collecting records from church attics and basements and making them widely accessible through preservation and digitization.

Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Council on Library and Information Resources have allowed CLA to work with more than a dozen other libraries, historical societies and cultural institutions to freely provide this wealth of digitized records. 

About the Congregational Library & Archives

The Congregational Library & Archives is a specialty library located in Boston. It fosters deeper understanding of the spiritual, intellectual, cultural and civic dimensions of the Congregational story and its ongoing relevance by collecting and sharing materials and by actively engaging with faith communities, scholars and the general public.   

To carry out this mission, CLA preserves and makes available materials pertaining to Congregationalism, the history of which has been interwoven with the development of the United States since the seventeenth century. CLA holds a rich collection of historical materials, which have significance not only for church history but also for social and political history and genealogy. In the last two decades, CLA acquired, digitized and transcribed early New England records in collaboration with an array of churches, historical societies, universities and cultural institutions as part of its New England’s Hidden Histories initiative. 

For more information about the Congregational Library & Archives, please visit www.congregationallibrary.org or contact Interim Executive Director Martha Walz at mwalz@14beacon.org.  

The e library’s digital archive is available at https://congregationallibrary.quartexcollections.com <