Image of the Month for June 2005

The First Universalist Church in Portsmouth, N.H., was gathered in 1777. This building, the "brick church," was dedicated on April 21, 1897, and was destroyed by fire on Jan. 11, 1947. The congregation had federated with the South Parish (Unitarian) in 1945, and this building was used for the greater part of the activities of the federated churches. The destruction of this building hastened the union of the two bodies into a single corporate body on Jan. 26, 1947. For more information, see: Craig, Lawrence R. Three Centuries of Religious Living. Portsmouth, N.H.: Randall Press, 1966. Photo of the fire damage, apparently intended for publication but not printed in the Leader [bMS 369/32 (19)]

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To see past images of the month, visit the images of people and images of congregations pages.

These images, often buried deep in our collections, are selected by Clifford Wunderlich; please address corrections to him.