You never know what you might find when you clean out the closet. It seems that the Rev. Mary Moore at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron, Ohio was doing just that when she came across an old metal box box with church records, including marriage and baptismal records, from the 1800s. She was going through the closet preparing for a remodeling project when she ran across the old box. Following is a teaser from an article by Colette M. Jenkins, Beacon Journal religion editor, in the March 27, 2009 edition of Ohio.com.
Inside the box were two bound volumes of hand-scripted minutes of congregational meetings, membership lists, baptismal and marriage records from
1872 to 1910. Another book contains the recorded minutes of the board of trustees. Two more recent books contain records dating to 1961, when the congregation moved to its current location. A brown spiral tablet is filled with the personal memories of Federica Crispin from 1872 to 1935.
The documents are significant because they date back to the year that the local Universalists began reorganizing (1872). The impetus of the reorganization was the establishment of Buchtel College by the Ohio Universalist Convention in 1870. The college was named in honor of John R. Buchtel, its largest benefactor.
Thanks to Christina Sachs Humphreys, CG, for notifying me about this article.
