History of the Baltimore New Church

In the early days of the New Church in North America, the Baltimore society set the stage for what followed on a remarkable number of fronts. The first New Church liturgy was produced in Baltimore in 1792. Baltimore's first clergyman, Rev. John Hargrove (pictured above), became, in 1795, the first New Church minister on the continent, from whom all other ordinations in the New Church in North America descend. He exchanged letters with George Washington in 1793, and Thomas Jefferson in 1799. While visiting Washington in 1802, through the instrumentality of the Senate chaplain, he was invited to preach in the Capitol rotunda, his audience including Jefferson and 100 members of Congress. His subject was "The Leading Doctrines of the New Jerusalem Church," and he "preached again, by request, on the following evening" (Hindmarsh Rise and Progress, p. 181). In 1804, he preached to both houses of Congress, on the the Second Coming and Last Judgment. Hargrove also oversaw the construction of the first New Church church building ("temple" in those days) in this hemisphere in 1800, and the first New Church periodical, The Temple of Truth, in 1801. In 1810, he was one of the founders of the Maryland Bible Society, and may have been responsible for their providing John Chapman ("Johnny Appleseed") with Bibles that he distributed (along with copies of Swedenborg's Writings) in his travels. Last but not least, the first printing of Heaven and Hell in the United States was done in Baltimore in 1812.

(Though not part of New Church history, it is also of historical interest to note that the second New Church clergyman in Baltimore, Rev. Adam Fonerden, was also a physician and Mr. Johns Hopkins became his patient as well as admirer. Ednah Silver's Sketches of the New Church states that "Fonerden was an inspirer in the founding of the Johns Hopkins University with its Hospital" (p. 41). He was a member of the University's first Board of Trustees.)

Bibliography

"The New Church in Baltimore" from M. Block The New Church in the New World (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1932, reprinted by Octagon Books, 1968), pp. 87-93

"Baltimore, The Home of Many New-Church Beginnings," in E.C. Silver Sketches of the New Church in America on a Background of Civic and Social Life Boston: Massachusetts New Church Union, pp. 39-46

R. Hindmarsh Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church in England, America and other Parts London: Hodson & Son 1861, pp. 150-151, 180-181

Freda G. Griffith, "Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell." A Study of the Production of the Work. New Church Life 1967;87:104-108

The MBS Epistle, newsletter of the Maryland Bible Society, Mid-summer 2003 issue

From the Library of Congress section on Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

"A Sermon on the Second Coming of Christ, and on the Last Judgment" Delivered the 25th December, 1804 before both houses of Congress, at the Capitol in the city of Washington. John Hargrove. Baltimore: Warner & Hanna, 1805.