Marlborough Congregational Church (1842)

Beginning in 1736, residents of what would become Marlborough made repeated petitions to the Connecticut General Assembly to form their own Congregational Society, which was eventually incorporated in 1747. According to Miss Mary Hall, in the Memorial History of Hartford County (1886), “The society without doubt took its name from Marlborough, Mass.; the largest tax-payer in the society being David Bigelow, a representative of a family conspicuous in the history of the old town of Marlborough, Mass. Ezra Carter, another influential member of the new society, came from the same town.” A meeting house was begun in 1748 and, again quoting from Hall, “The work of framing, raising, and covering the house was now begun, the expense being defrayed by levying a tax of four shillings on the pound. A little later in the same year the windows were glazed. This seems to have exhausted their resources, and nothing more was done until April, 1754,” when a pulpit, seats and pews were installed. Work continued over the years, until the “painting and underpinning of the meetinig-house and the laying of its steps made this remarkable structure complete in 1803. It had been fifty-four years in building, and was finished by laying the corner-stone last.” The church was completed the same year Marlborough was incorporated as a town. By 1841, a new church was needed. The original was torn down and the current Marlborough Congregational Church building was constructed in 1842, just back from the site of its predecessor above South Main Street. The original steeple was toppled in the Hurricane of 1938 and and was rebuilt.