We are the oldest church in Nahant. Sunday services were held as
early as 1820 in a small stone school-house.
The first church,
called the Nahant Church, built in 1832 as a "Summer Church"
for those from Boston who spent their summers in Nahant. Services
were held from the first Sunday in July through Labor Day. Minister
from the Boston area came to preach, including Rev. Phillips
Brooks, rector of Trinity Church in Boston and author of a favorite
Christmas Carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
The Nahant Church was badly damaged
in a storm in the 1850s and was replaced in 1868 by the granite
and
wood
main sanctuary that is in use today. Worship services were held
in the newly built Village Church during construction.
In 1851, the year-round Protestant
families built the Village Church under the name of the
Independent Methodist Society; and in 1905 it became a Congregational
Church
affiliated with the Essex South Association of the Massachusetts
Congregational Conference.
The Nahant Church and the Village Church merged in 1959 as The
Nahant Village Church. and in the same year the church affiliated
with the
United
Church of Christ.
The "new" church continued to use both buildings until the mid
1960s when the old Nahant Church building was renovated and enlarged
to include new Christian Education rooms, a fellowship hall (Swansburg
Hall, named after beloved pastor Rev. Ed. Swansburg), a kitchen,
pastor's study and a chapel that includes much of the furniture
and the stained glass memorial windows from the old Village Church
building. As Stanley Paterson put it in his book "Nahant
On The Rocks," "This was a suitable grafting of a Nahant limb onto a
Boston tree."
Today, the Nahant Village Church continues to be a vital congregation
open to people of all faith backgrounds, offering worship, Christian
Education for all ages, vocal and bell choirs, and mission and
outreach programs to the community and the world.
A DVD history of the Nahant Village Church narrated by Calantha
Sears, life long member of NVC and Curator of the Nahant Historical
Society is available at the church for $15.
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