Washington Universalist history, bought in installments

I’m sorry to say I forget which blog entry I read that mentioned the new Google News Archive feature, but it has been fun to see century-old news stories available for instant download, though you only get so far in most cases before having to pay a fee to read the whole thing. You know the first search I made was universalist. Because the most archived paper is The Washington Post, most of the news is about the local Universalist parish and there are lots of interesting items that I didn’t know about. Here are two.

  • The Universalist Church (then The Church of Our Father) hosted a fundraiser with “selections from the various mandolin, banjo, and guitar clubs of the city” for victims of the 1893 collapse of Ford’s Theatre, which was then used as a government office building. (Link.)
  • Later in 1893, the Church of Our Father opened a mission extension (The Church of the Redeemer) in Capitol Hill “in Haines’ Hall, corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Eighth street southeast.” (Link.) I had never heard of it, and it must not have lasted long. I assume the building’s gone too, since that’s near the Eastern Market Metro station and the brutalist Hine Junior High School.

By Scott Wells

Scott Wells, 46, is a Universalist Christian minister doing Universalist theology and church administration hacks in Washington, D.C.

1 comment

  1. yeah, it’s fun
    – I was going to mention my finding on my blog – but I’ll put a teaser here:
    which minister’s PR people (himself?) claimed to be one of the nation’s oldest minister?

    Yes, Scott knows the answer ……probably without guessing hard

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