A History of the First Parish Church Scituate, Massachusetts: Its Life and Times

First Parish in Scituate has a long, rich and surprising history. Rev. Lothrop is the ancestor to some of the most prominent American families such as the Roosevelts, the Bushes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Georgia O'Keefe and Benjamin Spock. Two of its early ministers were presidents of Harvard College. One minister's daughter was involved in a love triangle with Henry David Thoreau and his brother, John. Another minister later became a gold miner; another, a pacifist, paid the price for the rest of his life; still another was a Shakespearean troubadour for a time. The history of First Parish is a story of a small congregation continuing over the course of over 375 years despite schisms, financial struggles and a devastating fire. It has continued to serve the town of Scituate due to the hard work of its women, men and children through the years. The Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society gave its first Congregational History prize to Richard M. Stower for A History of the First Parish Church of Scituate, Massachusetts citing it as a remarkably comprehensive study of a 379-year-old congregation that sheds important new light on every age of Puritan, Unitarian, and Unitarian Universalist History. (June 2013)