October 19, 2014:
Ponderings of a Pilgrim Pastor
October 19, 2014
“Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ + Our Beginning”
“On Thanksgiving Day, 1914, Dr. Charles Haven Myers delivered an inspiring sermon at Centenary Methodist Church, which was then located on East 8th Street directly across from the YMCA building. The audience was composed of the members of Centenary and the people who were interested in organizing a Congregational Church in Chattanooga. At the conclusion of that meeting, more than one hundred persons desired to become charter members of the proposed church.
On December 4, 1914, in the Read House parlors, the Reverend Myers, formerly of the Methodist Episcopal Church, accepted a call to become Pilgrim’s first minister. On Sunday, December 6, 1914, Dr. Myers preached the first sermon to an audience exceeding 400 people. Pilgrim Guild was organized immediately. After the church was duly organized, the assembly room in the Hamilton County Courthouse was rented for the Sunday morning and evening services. Pilgrim Church paid $400 a year rental with extra pay for someone to operate the elevators.
Then came the opportunity to purchase the old Bijou Theater at the corner of Walnut and Sixth Street for $35,000. The auditorium on Eighth Street having been destroyed by fire during the first world war, Pilgrim Church was in almost constant use as substitute for a city auditorium. The cost of upkeep of the church house was so enormous that, a few years later, the church voted to sell it for $50,000. They then rented the Knights of Pythias Hall on Walnut Street while a new building was being erected at the corner of Oak and Lindsay Streets.
In September 1919 the Reverend Myers announced that he had accepted a call from Shaker Heights Congregational Church in Cleveland, Ohio. So the new church was completed under the leadership of Dr. Marston Freeman who became pastor of Pilgrim Congregational Church in January of 1920 - 1927 with his death in 1937. His widow purchased a home at 1800 Crestwood Drive that later became our manse through the gift of his wife and daughter in 1950. It became the residence of Pilgrim’s ministers until 1999 when the manse was sold.
The corner stone of the new building at the corner of Oak and Lindsay was laid on Sunday, December 4, 1921 along with an old millstone from the site of the Brainerd Mission (the same stone used by congregational missionaries to grind meal for the mission).
Dedication service was held on Sunday, May 21, 1922, conducted by Pilgrim’s first minister, Dr. Charles Haven Myers assisted by the second minister, Rev. Martin S. Freeman. Rev. Freeman was succeeded by Dr. Rexford Raymond under whose ministry the church secured the pipe organ from the Reformed Jewish Congregation. Dr. Raymond’s ministry was the years of 1927 - 1932.
Dr. Raymond was succeeded by Dr. Alfred W. Hurst who provided social vision and community leadership, and also led the congregation in retiring the debt and remodeling of Oak and Lindsay Streets of the church building.
On Sunday, December 5, 1943, the anniversary of the founding of the church (1914), a mortgage burning was observed. Judge Charles W. Lusk, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the time the building was erected, accepted the canceled mortgage on behalf of the chairman Kenneth E. Hapgood.
In 1944 the Reverend Arnold Slater became our fifth minister, a ministry that lasted for 27 years. During Rev. Slater’s rich leadership the church outgrew its building on Oak and Lindsay Streets. The Sunday school attendance had increased from 49 in 1948 to 106 in 1955. Need for a new building was evident.
Our membership on December 11, 1955 voted to purchase more than an acre for $8,000.00 at Glenwood Drive and Third Street. The firm of Bianculli and Palm designed the structure. Paul Sheperd Jr., realtor and member of Pilgrim, located the property.
Ground was broken on the new site, Monday morning July 28, 1958. The old mission stone and the cornerstone from the downtown church were laid on November 18, 1958. The building was dedicated September 20, 1959 followed by an Open House. Within the building was the organ from the old church, rebuilt and enlarged.”
— Excerpts from the 2008 History of Pilgrim Church by Mrs. Harrel