Northampton Church Archives–Documentary Editing Project

December 18, 2016 by

Melting in the pews. Edwards always read his sermons. He made up for it by fun descriptions of Hell.

Melting in the pews. Edwards always read his sermons. He made up for it by fun descriptions of Hell.

This isn’t precisely Mormon but it represents an interesting opportunity to see how an important precursor to Mormonism executed Christianity. New England’s Hidden Histories, a scholarly partner of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale has published (online) the earliest church record book from Northampton, Mass. The book contains an elaborate 14-page “covenant and statement of principles” at the establishment of the church. This volume contains articles of faith, along with the covenant, meeting minutes, admissions, dismissions, membership lists, baptisms, deaths, and marriages, and an index for members by name. The record has Jonathan Edwards’s records of church discipline. There is also material from Solomon Stoddard—and from John Hooker, successor to Edwards at the church.

New England’s Hidden Histories is a project of the Congregational Library and Archives of Boston. Images of the Northampton Records can be seen at http://www.congregationallibrary.org/nehh/series1/NorthamptonMAFirst5314.

Hidden Histories is looking for volunteers to help transcribe the record book. If you are interested in participating in the transcription project leave a comment and I’ll put you in touch with the Director of Transcriptions, Helen Gelinas.

Whether you’re interested in helping out with this editing project or not, I think the record is a fun read.

Filed Under: Mormon
«
»

Comments

  1. William (@WilliamWozzeck) says:
    December 18, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    I’d love to help. Who should I send my email address to?

  2. WVS says:
    December 18, 2016 at 8:48 pm

    Send your email to admin@bycommonconsent.com and I’ll forward it to Gelinas. Thanks for the interest.

  3. John Turner says:
    December 18, 2016 at 8:53 pm

    Hidden Histories is one of my favorite projects. And it’s very helpful to have transcriptions!

  4. WVS says:
    December 19, 2016 at 11:02 am

    It is pretty cool, John. And transcriptions for this will be really useful.

  5. Hal says:
    January 11, 2017 at 3:36 pm

    what does W.V. stand for ? thanks.

%d bloggers like this: