Center Church on the Green

In 1638, John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton purchased the land that would become New Haven from the Quinnipiac tribe, with the intention of creating a theocratic colony just off the coast. That same year, Davenport preached his first sermon on the site at which Center Church on the Green (then called the First Ecclesiastical Society) still stands. The first meeting house was built on the site in 1639, and the current building—the congregation’s fourth meeting-house—has stood since 1814.

Over its nearly 400 years of existence, First Church has served crucial social, political, and religious functions for the city of New Haven. It was a crucial part of state government, and received state tax revenue, until the Connecticut state constitution was rewritten in 1818. One of its ministers, the Rev. James Pierpont, was instrumental in bringing Yale to New Haven in 1701. The basement of the current building houses a crypt in which many of the colony’s first residents—including Davenport and Eaton—have found their final resting places.

Today, Center Church is the centerpiece of the Green’s three churches. While its political and even social functions have dwindled drastically since the 18^th and 19^th centuries, it remains a vital historic and traditional monument in the center of the city’s most prominent public space. The congregation still worships every Sunday, making it the oldest church in the city. 

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Center Church and its congregants in various iterations have owned and used the land at 250 Temple Street since 1638, when it was purchased by John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton from the Quinnipiac tribe under the leadership of sachem Momauguin.[1] In the more than 375 years since, a meeting-house has existed on the site in 4 forms—two small wooden ones, built in 1639 and 1670, and two brick ones, built in 1755 and 1814.[2]

At the time the current structure was built, the Green also functioned as a cemetery. The current structure, which was constructed from 1812-14, was built over several of these graves. The basement of the church thus functions as a crypt, where the graves of some of the first residents of New Haven colony still lie—including that of Eaton, the colony’s first governor. The remainder of the grave markers on the Green were moved to the New Haven Burying Ground (later called Grove Street Cemetery) in 1821, and so Center Church’s crypt is an important historical marker which, in some sense, captures the New Haven Green as it once was.

[1] https://yipp.yale.edu/bio/bibliography/momauguin

[2] Historic Resources Inventory. 

The same congregation has worshipped at the site of 250 Temple Street since the colonization of New Haven in 1638. The Reverend John Davenport, one of the colony’s founders, organized the congregation with New Haven’s original Puritan colonists—including the colony’s first governor, Theophilus Eaton, who is buried underneath the current building. Over the ensuing nearly four centuries, the congregation has had four meeting-houses, all on or near the same site, and gone by several names (including the First Ecclesiastical Society, First Congregational Church, First Church of Christ, and the contemporary Center Church). The underlying institution and location, however, have remained constant since the founding of New Haven—making Center Church central to understanding New Haven’s religious and civic history.

New Haven and the state of Connecticut were founded as Congregationalist enclaves, and so Center Church (which was Congregationalist) was intimately tied to civic life from its founding—receiving funds from state taxes and participating explicitly in state government. This state of affairs persisted until church and state were formally separated in the Connecticut state constitution of 1818, called by some historians the “bloodless Revolution of 1818.”[1] Yet even then, New Haven served as the co-capitol of Connecticut from 1701 to 1873, and the statehouse stood immediately across the Green from Center Church, on the College Street side near the university. Depictions of the state house and the church from this period often depict the two structures as part of the same landscape, illustrating the church’s continued importance in the civic life of New Haven even after its explicit influence had ended.

The church also served an important function as an early bridge between town and gown. The Reverend James Pierpont, a storied and widely influential reverend of the church, was instrumental in relocating Yale College from Saybrook to New Haven in 1701. Because of this connection, Yale students attended church in the church’s meeting-house from 1701 to 1757, when the University constructed its own chapel. Yale commencements took place in the meeting-house for nearly two centuries, from 1701-1895, and to this day graduating students march around the building during the commencement procession to commemorate Center Church’s traditional, sustained relationship with the university.[2]

[1] https://elections.lib.tufts.edu/catalog?f%5Boffice_id_ssim%5D%5B%5D=ON027&f%5Bstate_name_sim%5D%5B%5D=Connecticut&range%5Bdate_sim%5D%5Bbegin%5D=1817&range%5Bdate_sim%5D%5Bend%5D=1817

[2] http://centerchurchonthegreen.org/history/more-history/

Center Church sits in the center of the southeast side of the New Haven Green, facing away from Yale’s Old Campus and towards New Haven City Hall. It is flanked on either side by Trinity Episcopal Church and United Church on the Green, each of which was constructed within five years of Center Church. To modern sensibilities, the prominence of these three religious institutions in New Haven’s most important public space is a reminder of the degree to which Christianity is interwoven with New Haven’s past, even as its influence continues to decline in the present. It is also a reminder of the important, even elite role that the Green once played in New Haven politics and social life. Today, the Green serves as a public space, a park, and a home for many New Haveners who are currently without a traditional place to live. Center Church, along with the other churches on the Green, has increased its outreach to this population in recent years, reflecting a new clientele that has shifted as the downtown space has morphed from a center of elite activity to a space where the socioeconomic stratifications present in the city are incredibly clear.

The section of Temple Street bordering the Green is itself an enclave from the commerce and bustle that characterizes the rest of the street. Northeast from Center Church along Temple are Yale buildings—residential and classroom—and the street is heavily used by undergraduates, grad students, and faculty when classes are in session. Southwest down Temple is a slew of restaurants, bars, and theaters—the center of the city’s nightlife. The three churches and the Green itself serve a dual, somewhat contradictory function—as physical visual barriers between Yale and downtown New Haven which simultaneously occupy a space that ought to let residents, in theory, cross from one of these spaces into the other.