Founding Document
of
“The First Unitarian Society of the City of Albany”
1842. Photographic reproduction

This written record of a “meeting of the male members of the congregation” states that on November 29^th 1842 the “First Unitarian Society of the City of Albany” was “formed and denominated,” and nine trustees were elected.  The nine trustees included doctors, bankers, merchants, a judge, a newspaper editor, and an auctioneer.  More specifically they were:

Samuel Cheever, attorney, first judge of the Court of Common Pleas and of the County Court from 1833-1838;
William Durant, merchant, one of first board of managers of the Albany Savings Bank;
Orville L. Holley, editor of Albany Daily Advertiser; Surveyor-General of State in 1838;
Joseph M. Lovett, in 1860, treasurer of Albany Exchange Savings Bank;
John Van Buren, M.D., well-known physician of Dutch descent and employed by many of the older Dutch;
Solomon M. Parke, auctioneer;
Ami N Burton, M.D.;
William B. Pierce, merchant;
George T. Hill, no information.

The congregation started out in rented space at the corner of Howard and South Pearl Streets.  By 1844, the church had raised the money to purchase and renovate a Methodist Episcopal building at 64 Division Street.  For more information, refer to the book “One Hundred years of Unitarianism in Albany” by John C. Guffin, published in 1943, available in our library.