Looking back

A google search for the "Independent Calvinistic Church of Newburyport" turns up empty.

If I didn't live on Prospect Street and wasn't curious about its history, I wouldn't have heard of the church either.

Apparently, sometime in the late 1700s, around the time of the 4th Religious Society in Newburyport, the Independent Calvinists made their home in a church on the corner of Prospect and Temple Streets. (Today's maps have Prospect and Temple running parallel so my guess is the church was situated either along today's Fair Street or Federal Street.)

During the early 1800s, the church was converted into the Prospect Street Meeting House, which along with the City Hall auditorium, was used for festive gatherings, funerals and the like.

Edward Wigglesworth's funeral service in 1826 was one of the more notorious events held at the meeting house, according to The History of Newburyport, Massachusetts: 1764-1905 by John J. Currier.

Born in 1741 in Ipswich, Wigglesworth graduated Harvard College in 1761 and earned a wage for many years working in Newburyport for various shipmasters. In July 1776, he was appointed Colonel of a local Continental Army battalion, and he remained in active service through 1779 before entering politics: Newburyport selectman from 1783-84, elected state representative to the General Court in 1785, and Newburyport Custom House collector from 1792-95.

As to the history of my street, Currier writes that Prospect was initially laid out around 1749 and was not complete from State to Bromfield until 1874.