HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 809

120, 122 and 124, South Ninth street, being seventy-five feet front, by about one hundred and ten feet deep. The ground was broken for the building in November, 1852, and the corner-stone of the present church edifice was laid, January 11th, 1853, and the building completed, was dedicated to the worship of God on the 22d of the next December. The entire cost of the property was about $38,000. The years 1858 and 1866 are thankfully remembered as years of special divine favor, in which large numbers were added to the church. The successive pastors of the church have been as follows: Thomas K. Beecher, June 25th, 1851 to May 16, 1854; Henry B. Elliott, November 9, 1854 to November 19, 1855 ; William R. Tompkins, October 9,1856 to September, 1864; Leonard W. Bacon, March, 1865.

In May, 1868, a parsonage was added to the church property adjoining the church edifice, at an expense of $16,000. The church has no mission schools, but sustains several neighborhood prayer meetings, for missionary purposes, and a system of visitation. The communicants, in February, 1869, numbered two hundred and thirty-four.

First Congregational (E. D.), corner of South Third and Eleventh streets, was organized May 28, 1843, principally of the first secession from the Presbyterian church, and during the same year, they erected a brick edifice on South Third, corner of Eleventh street. The Rev. S. S. Jocelyn took the pastoral charge at its first organization, the number of communicants being eight, and its first deacons James Warner, Samuel Wilde and Henry Davis. No subsequent history of this church has been obtained.

IX. UNIVERSALIST CHURCHES.

For many years previous to the establishment of a Universalist church in Brooklyn, there were those here who belonged to the society and congregation in New York city; and for whose convenience, meetings were held from time to time, on this side of the river, under the ministry of the Rev. Messrs. Mitchell, Sawyer and others. Finally in 1841, Messrs. William Burbank, Hiram K. Haskins, Wm- Raynor, Edwin Smith and Morris Reynolds, met at Mr. Smith’s house, and, on consultation, decided to rent a hall on the corner of Fulton and Cranberry streets, owned by Hon. George Hall, which they occupied for several sabbaths, with preaching by Mr. Sawyer and others. This experiment proving Successful, they applied for the rent of the hall for the term of a year. By this time, however, much opposition had been aroused among the orthodox denominations in the city, and the