The 100th Anniversary of the founding of the First Unitarian Church of Sacramento was marked by observances in December of 1967 and February of 1968. The first church service had been held on 22 December 1867, followed by a formal organization announced on 29 March 1868. In his Centennial Sermon of December 3rd, Rev. Ford Lewis recalled nights in his early youth on an Illinois farm carrying a lantern for his Dad:
I had that duty from the time of my earliest memories, carrying the lantern while Dad was doing the chores on a late winter evening. It came as a revelation to me, when he asked me to walk behind him rather than in front of him, that a light held behind someone helps a lot more than [one] held in front. History is that backlighting which shows us the future in far greater fidelity than we could ascertain from any other source. Thus we undertake through historical backlighting to illuminate our congregation in Sacramento.
The first Unitarians had arrived with the 1849 Gold Rush, most coming from the New England states where the Universalists had organized in 1793 and the Unitarians in 1825. By 1865 officials at Unitarian headquarters in Boston were aware of seventeen Unitarian families living in Sacramento, but there was no evidence that they had developed the feeling of community essential to the formation of long term, stable bonds. Later that year, when Rev. Henry Bellows of New York City initiated the collection of a $100,000 fund for expanding the Unitarian religion in the Pacific coast area, there were only two far-west congregations in existence. One was in Oregon City, Oregon (1844), and the other in San Francisco (1850). Subsequently, churches were established in Portland, Oregon (1866); San Jose, California (1866); Sacramento (1867-68) and San Diego (1873). By 1890 a total of 13 congregations had been formed in the region.1
The American Unitarian Association subsidized the several Sacramento congregations from the first one in 1867 until at last the Society became self-sufficient in 1951 — an elapsed time of 84 years. One might well ask why Boston headquarters went along so patiently for so long with the “hard-Iuck” Sacramento congregations.
One possible reason may have been that Sacramento was useful as an inexpensive “proving ground” for young and inexperienced ministers. Three are known to have survived an early ministry in Sacramento before going on to long and successful careers in churches elsewhere.2
1 1984 Directory Unitarian Universalist Association, 25 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02108; p. 176.
2 Berkeley B. Blake served 46 years in California ministries, dying at age 91 in a Santa Paula rest home in 1979 (Obituary in the Unitarian Universalist World, 15 Dec., 1979, p. 15). Robert C. Withington served 50 years in the ministry before becoming minister emeritus in 1980 of the Unitarian Church of Hudson, Mass. (U. U.A. Directory of 1984, p. 232). Arthur Foote served the Saint Paul, Minn., Unity Church from 1945 to 1970 (op cit, p.176).
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