A Brief History of the Church

June 1770: The First Church of Christ in Norwich, Vermont was gathered and organized by the Reverend Peter Powers. He served several parishes along the Connecticut River and traveled to them by canoe. He was a revolutionary with a price on his head who later moved to Deer Isle Maine.

August 1775: The Reverend Lyman Potter was ordained and settled in as the first minister.

1817: The church was built on the green facing west. The Paul Revere bell was hung in the belfry; it is the earliest in Vermont and the only one cast during Revere's lifetime. The steeple clock, made by Stephen Hasham, was crafted about this time. Hasham was a well-known clockmaker from Charlestown, NH

1852: The church was moved to its present location and enlarged. In the old location, Norwich University students would ring the church bells at all hours of the day or night by tying a rope to the clapper from the fourth floor barracks window.

1949: The first Norwich Fair was held to begin raising money for the Parish Hall addition, which was built the following year.

1957: The Congregationalists agreed to join with the Evangelical and reformed Church to form a union. to be known as the United Church of Christ. The Norwich church approved this union in 1961.

May 1998: Mary Brownlow Huessy became the Associate Pastor of the church.

December 2001: Douglas S. Moore became the Pastor of the church.