The first European settlers around what would become Old Greenwich grew crops ”” Riverside Avenue was historically known as Potato Road ”” harvested shellfish and worshiped in the First Congregational Church, this year celebrating its 350th anniversary.
- Pat Larrabee, First Congregation Church historian, and congregant Peter Flierl.
The kickoff of the town of Greenwich”™s “375th Neighborhood Tours,” commemorating the town”™s 17th-century roots, was to begin May 16, appropriately at the First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich. Without the church and its charter dating to May 11, 1665, Greenwich could not have been a town.
Thirty-four-year congregation member ””also principal of regional public relations firm Broccoli Soup ”” Peter Flierl said, “You needed a church to become a town in those days and this was the first.” He noted the prominently towered Second Congregational Church on East Putnam Avenue in Greenwich ”” the prototype for the sturdy stone church at the top of the hill ”” refers to its Old Greenwich sister congregation as “the Mother of All Churches” in communications.
Church historian Pat Larrabee is from Illinois and studied chemistry at Smith College in Massachusetts, but she has embraced the church”™s local history and its accompanying 68 boxes of documents. The original charter is in the temperature- and humidity-controlled archives of the Greenwich Historical Society in Cos Cob.
Larrabee said there have been four First Congregation churches, all in the vicinity of the current one on Sound Beach Avenue.
On Memorial Day, the church will commemorate its history with a musical float in the town parade. The float is a flatbed truck with pews. Congregants in period dress between 1665 and the 1970s will perform.
Larrabee and a historical team of 18 are currently working on a history of the church across the most recent 50 years.
Wow! You nailed it and gave me a deeper appreciation of my Dad. Thank you!