HISTORICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE CHURCHES OF DEERFIELD

 As a teenager in the 1950s and 1960s, I attended the South Deerfield Congregational Church with my family, but I had other interests than the church's history.  This all changed years later.  By the end of 2016, the congregation had declined in membership to the point where it could no longer support a minister and maintain church facilities.  Members decided to close the doors just two years shy of the 200th anniversary of founding the oldest standing meeting house in town.  Church leaders deeded the church to the Town of Deerfield in the hope that the buildings could be repurposed and continue to serve the community.

What to do with two centuries of church records became of considerable concern to church members.  I offered to do two things -- to digitizes the church meeting records so that there would be a duplicate set of documents that could be used for research purposes and to arrange for their archival storage at the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.  

As I began to photocopy the meeting records, I soon realized that these volumes contained a great deal of information about the early history of what was then called Muddy, then Bloody Brook.  In 1816, when the Massachusetts legislature authorized the creation of the second parish in the Town of Deerfield, the vast majority of village residents attended the Congregational Church and were bound by an oath "to watch over ourselves and one another in the spirit of meekness, tenderness and Christian fidelity."  The church became the moral bellwether of the community.  Miscreants were brought before the church to be admonished, even excommunicated, and/or given forgiveness and eligible to take communion.  Church records contain as much social history of the village as they do about theological issues and church governance.  Several of the articles here reflect what I have learned, which has fascinated me to this day.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS RELATED TO SOUTH DEERFIELD CHURCH HISTORY

DIGITIZED CHURCH RECORDS: DEERFIELD, HATFIELD, SUNDERLAND, WHATELY

   My explorations into the records of the Second Parish Congregational Church of (South) Deerfield made me realize how essential such documents were in understanding the early histories, and particularly the social histories, of our Connecticut Valley towns.  I am also a firm believer that all historical studies should be grounded in primary documents whenever possible.  To make such information available to scholars, but also to valley residents interested in such studies, I have digitized the early church records of the Congregational Churches of South Deerfield, Hatfield, Sunderland and Whately.

   The cover pages of the church records that I have digitized are provided below.  A copy of these records has been given to each of the represented churches.  The Whately records can be obtained on the web page of the Whately Historical Society; as can the Hatfield church records on the web page of the Hatfield Historical Society.  Any institution or individual wishing to obtain digital copies of the South Deerfield and Sunderland church documents that are listed below may contact Peter Thomas to discuss their request.  These are very large files -- typically too large to transmit via e-mail.