The original First Unitarian Church of Sacramento, organized on March 29, 1868, disappeared because of the financial panic of 1873 and the return of its minister to Boston. After a hiatus of fourteen years, there was a renewal of activities under the leadership of a Sacramento resident newly ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1886.1 An account of the resumption of Unitarian services was recorded in the Sacramento Record-Union on January 8, 1887, as an item in the “Sunday Religious Notices” column:
UNITARIAN SERVICE — AT PIONEER HALL. At 7:45 p.m. a meeting will be held looking toward the
establishment in Sacramento of a church representing the liberal Christian faith. The exercises will be
conducted by Rev. C. P. Massey, and addresses will be delivered by Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D.D., and
Charles A. Murdock, Esq., of San Francisco, and Rev. C. W. Wendte, of Oakland. All are invited.
Reverend Dr. Stebbins and Rev. Wendte were prominent ministers of the Bay Area; Murdock was a printer who later became editor of the Pacific Unitarian, which was a missionary organ to propagate the faith in a region where Unitarian principles were little known to the public.2 It is not known how Sacramento businessman Charles P. Massey qualified for ordination, but it is evident that he had enlisted strong and generous support from the Pacific Coast Conference for help in renewing the Sacramento church. It is also probable that missionary funds had been supplied by the American Unitarian Association. The initial service was reported in the Record Union on January 10, 1887; the article provides an account of the religious ideology to be followed by the newly organized group:
UNITARIAN SERVICE
The Establishment of a New Church in Sacramento
Last evening, in Pioneer Hall, a meeting was held and the first step taken toward the establishment in this city of a Church representing the liberal Christian faith. Rev. C. P. Massey conducted the service, and addresses were made by Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D.D., Charles W. Murdock of San Francisco, and Rev. C. W. Wendte, of Oakland.
The meeting was largely attended — in fact; some could not gain admission to the main hall, and were seated in the anteroom where they could hear. The choir consisted of Miss Alice Bush of Martinez, and Miss Emmy Felter, Miss Daisy Siddons, Elwood Bruner and A. A. Buchanan of Sacramento. Miss Gertie Gerrish presided at the piano. The canvass made of the city ensures the establishment of such a Church, with Rev. C. P. Massey as pastor. Services for the present will be held in Pioneer Hall.
Mr. Massey says:
In the little company of Christian worshipers, formerly united under the ministry of Rev. Henry W. Brown, the years which have elapsed since his departure have made sad inroads, and death or removal has materially thinned the ranks of those who, under his leadership, maintained a society pledged to the truths for which the name Unitarian stands representative. Enough remain, however, possessed of stern convictions as to the essential character of that religious faith to warrant the attempt to again organize in Sacramento…
The movement begins under circumstances which seem to be especially favorable. The missionary spirit lately infused into those of the Liberal faith, by means of which there has been effected a more systematic presentation of the claims of a rational belief, and this notably through two largely attended conferences recently held in San Francisco, and also through the free distribution of some of the vigorous writings of our most representative men, has already roused into life the slumbering thought of other communities, and the formation of other societies within a limited radius will assure to us conditions favorable to mutual exchange of sympathy and aid.
The enterprise in which we are enlisted is distinctly religious. It plants itself firmly on the truths revealed to the world in Jesus of Nazareth, but it assumes to interpret these in obedience to the intellectual demand man’s advancing knowledge in every department of thought is now imperatively making; and it also assumes to apply these truths fearlessly, and untrammeled by tradition or the benumbing influences of theological dogma, to all the practical affairs of human life, its social problems and personal relations.
1 “Unitarianism on the Pacific Coast”, Arnold Crompton, Beacon Press, Boston, 1957; p. 115.
2 Ibid.
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