History of First Universalist Church

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A Brief History

Written by John Addington, Church Archivist

Our church was founded on Oct. 24, 1859, when Minneapolis was a frontier town with a population about half as large as today's membership at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church.

Because many of the Yankee businessmen who were the movers and shakers of the city also moved and shook the church, within seven years the congregation was able to built a steepled wooden church of some prominence, complete with a $2,500 organ. It was located at 5th St. and 4th Av. S. in downtown Minneapolis, where a large parking ramp now stands.

A joke of that year, 1866: Have you seen the new First Universalist Church? No, what's that? It's where they have cushions in the pews and no hell.

No hell, of course, was the central tenet of Universalist belief: Everyone was going to be saved!

The task of spreading this heretical doctrine was taken up in 1863 by the church's first full-time minister, J.W. Keyes. He went back East for his health in 1866, to be succeeded by James Tuttle.

Tuttle was the first in the line of durable leaders who have given our church what must be an unmatched record for ministerial longevity: four senior ministers in the 120 years from 1866 to 1986.

Tuttle admired the Church of the Redeemer in Chicago, so he had our church renamed that way, although its legal name has always been First Universalist Church.

If "Redeemer" sounds unduly conservative to your modern ears, remember that the history of Universalism, as well as that of Unitarianism, was one of a long, gradual transition from mainstream Christianity. (Unitarianism's original distinguishing doctrine was a denial of the Trinity, that God was one and not three.)

Tuttle was certainly liberal by the standards of his day, but he wasn't liberal enough for Herman Bisbee, minister of the Universalist Church of St. Anthony, the village across the river. (The part of Minneapolis on the east side of the Mississippi was the village of St. Anthony until it merged with Minneapolis in 1872.) Bisbee and Tuttle engaged in a theological debate via public lectures and newspaper coverage. The result was a heresy trial that ended in the "disfellowshipping" of Bisbee in 1872 by the national Universalist organization. Not long after that his congregation dissolved and sold its little stone church (now Our Lady of Lourdes) to the Catholics.¹

First Universalist continued to grow with the city, building a large, ornate stone Gothic church at 8th St. and 2nd Av. S. in 1876 and rebuilding and enlarging it after a fire in 1888.

Marion Shutter, a Baptist minister who became disillusioned with Baptist doctrine after the death of his wife in 1885, became Tuttle's assistant in 1886 and succeeded him in 1891. The church reached out in service to various parts of the community with the founding of the Tuttle Church in south Minneapolis in 1885 and Unity Settlement House in north Minneapolis in 1897.

The Tuttle Church, at 27th Street and Blaisdell Avenue South., served as a satellite congregation until financial difficulties forced its closing in1931. The settlement house pioneered in child care and educational work among the neediest citizens of Minneapolis. When government assumed its welfare functions and highway construction claimed its building, the settlement house association became the First Universalist Foundation, whose endowment supports efforts for peace and racial understanding.

Shutter's senior pastorate spanned 48 years, from the church's young adulthood to what seemed like its old age.

By 1939, when he died, the rich and powerful founders were long gone, and most of their descendants had found other church attachments. Improved transportation had changed living patterns in Minneapolis, and people tended to worship where they lived, increasingly far from downtown. As few as 30 people might be found in the 1,000-seat sanctuary on 8th Street on a Sunday.

Carl Olson was chosen to change that. He and Mildred came out from Massachusetts, and revival (oh, un-Universalist word!) began.

But World War II also began. The congregation sold the downtown building to the Catholic Archdiocese in 1941 and made plans for a new building in south Minneapolis. With Pearl Harbor, however, the sale money went into the bank and First Universalist Church moved into temporary quarters in a large house at 4600 Dupont Av. S. to wait out the war.

Thirty-one members voted at the meeting that decided to build a church at 5000 Girard Avenue South. It was completed in the spring of 1949 and served as our home for the next 44 years.

The illness and resignation of Carl Olson in 1963 brought John Cummins to succeed him.

John, whose work in merging Unitarian and a Universalist congregations in Waltham, Mass., preceded the denominational merger in1961, led the church through the divisive Vietnam War era and renewed growth afterward, and Drusilla became a national leader in the Unitarian Universalist Association.

With John's retirement in 1986, First Universalist entered another period of rapid change. We learned the value of diverse talents in liberal religion through the interim ministries of Ted Webb and Armida Alexander, and in May 1988 we launched into the adventure of a co-ministry with the arrival of the husband-and-wife team of Terry Sweetser and Susan Milnor.

Thus began a period of accelerating growth. It soon became plain that the church building was no longer adequate for Sunday services or for office space for our growing staff or for classrooms for the burgeoning church school. The '90s began with a two-year effort to identify needs and solutions. In June 1992 the congregation voted to buy the Adath Jeshurun Synagogue at 3400 Dupont Avenue South, whose congregation had decided to build in Minnetonka. Meanwhile we were forced to go from two to three services on Sunday, the only church in the denomination to do so. On Sunday, July 25, 1993, we gathered in the empty sanctuary for the start of the day's service, walked en masse to our new home and finished the service there.

Terry and Susan completed their ministry in late 1995. Wayne Robinson, Ken Brown and Sheryl Wurl served as interim ministers until Frank Rivas became parish minister in August, 1997. The Rev. Kate Tucker began as contract associate minister in September, 1997, and was called by the congregation as settled associate minister in September, 1998. ²

Thus we enter the new millenium with a strong ministerial team and administrative staff, an expanding program of education and community service, a membership of above 800, and every confidence in the future.

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Historical Updates by Paul Riedesel
1. Bisbee served the Hawes Place Unitarian Church in Boston from 1874 until his death in 1879.
2. Rev. Frank Rivas resigned in January 2007

This page last updated on 02/10/07

First Universalist Church of Minneapolis

A Brief History