First Parish Church (Pepperell, Mass.) Records,1746-1839.

The Community Church of Pepperell is located at Three Townsend Street in the old center of Pepperell, Massachusetts. Originally, the Congregationalists and the Unitarians in Pepperell worshipped together in a church located across the street from the current site. In 1832, the Congregationalists split from the predominantly Unitarian church and built a church of their own on Townsend Street. Twenty seven years later, in 1859, the Congregational Church burned to the ground. A new structure, the existing building, was completed in 1860 and dedicated in January of 1861. In 1917, the Unitarian Church burned and the Unitarians, with insufficient funds and some practical thinking chose once again to join with the Congregational Church and agreed to be a Federated Church of Unitarians and Congregationalists. On September 16, 1919, the church was incorporated as the nondenominational Community Church Society under the guidance of the Reverend Francis E. Webster, an Episcopalian minister from Christ Church in Waltham, Massachusetts. The Community Church welcomes all denominations to worship and our motto, inscribed over the front portico, is “In Essentials, Unity, In Non-Essentials, Liberty, In all Things, Charity.” ((from the Pepperell Church website, 2015)).