First Congregational Church of Zumbrota

The First Congregational Church of Zumbrota is an historic congregational church in Zumbrota, Minnesota, United States. It was built in 1862 in the form of a colonial meeting house. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for being one of Southeast Minnesota's oldest standing churches and a reflection of New Englander settlement in many of its towns. On June 28, 1857, fifty people attended a meeting in the Webster and Thompson Land Office to formally organize the church. The fourteen charter members of the church were: Josiah and Nancy W. Thompson, Charles and Harriet E. Ward, and Thomas P. Kellett, all of Lowell, Massachusetts; Charles C. and Elizabeth D. Webster of Canaan, New Hampshire; George and Abby R. Sanderson of Red Wing, Minnesota; Albert and Lucy Ann Barrett of Staffordville, Connecticut; D. Berkley and Susan H. Goddard of Worcester, Massachusetts; and Nathaniel Mullihan of Brookline, Massachusetts. A hall on the second floor of T.P. Kellett's store (on the corner where the downtown Bank of Zumbrota now stands) was used for a church service for the first time on Thanksgiving Day of 1857. By 1860, the members began to seriously consider building a church, but because of the poor harvests in 1857-59, people had very little cash, and so one of the members was authorized to go back to Massachusetts to ask for donations. He collected $1,000, which m

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