Hammond Street church to mark anniversary

BANGOR – Hammond Street Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, 28 High St., will mark its 175th anniversary at a service at 10 a.m. Sunday.

The Rev. Susan Craig, associate conference minister, will deliver the sermon. Former pastors also have been invited to attend.

A timeline highlighting the church’s history has been painted on a wall of the large vestry, where a luncheon will be served after the service. A video featuring interviews with 18 members will be shown.

According to newspaper accounts, the church was the city’s fifth house of worship. Built in 1833, it was constructed on Patten’s Garden opposite Gun House Hill. Construction was financed by selling pews, while expenses were financed with a yearly pew tax until 1916, when expenditures were raised by pew rentals and weekly offerings.

Because the church steeple is almost 250 feet above Main Street, the American flag was flown from atop the clock tower in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. In the early 1900s, the city placed a fire alarm system in the belfry.

On Oct. 16, 1905, the church organist discovered that the instrument had been destroyed when the weight attached to the alarm system’s tapper broke from its chain and crashed through four floors into the center of the pipe organ. Six months later a replacement organ arrived from Boston, the cost of which was split between the church and the city.

The church has a long history of service to the Bangor community and to the world, according to information on its Web site.

A medical mission to China, a modern-day ecumenical food cupboard, the first abolitionist sermon in Bangor, a school for former slaves, an initiative to provide a shelter for the homeless, sponsorship of a Vietnamese refugee family, the Alternative Christian Voices, an 1896 job training program for poor women in Bangor all demonstrate the church’s response the community’s social needs over the past two centuries.

For more information on the event, call 942-4381 or visit the church Web site at www.hammondstreetcc.org.